Fallen Embers
by Ms Starlight
Summary: Seifer has a bounty on his head, and Quistis tracks him into the snowy mountains of Trabia Finished!
1. Light in the Snow

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters...heck, I don't even own the idea* (see bottom)...but the words are all mine.

A/N: I thought this up a long time ago and originally I was going to write just a short little piece...but then I started and realized I couldn't cover everything that I wanted to in one part that was a size any reader would consider taking on. :) This also has slightly shorter chapters than I usually write.

Fallen Embers

Chapter 1: Light in the Snow

Quistis tucked her hood close to her face, ignoring how its furry rim blocked her peripheral vision. She couldn't help but wonder why anyone would want to live in Trabia. The snow swept plane in front of her gave way to craggy mountains that were riddled with hidden crevasses, ones she'd been told could be so well hidden by the snow that a person would fall down into it before even suspecting its presence. Deep under her down filled coat, her thin frame shuddered. Somehow, she'd expected Seifer to travel somewhere warmer.

Feeling for her whip, she grunted with determination and set out across the bleak, whiteness once again. Her legs ached from her snow shoes, but she knew taking them off would mean falling through six feet of snow.

"How'd I get myself into this mess?" she mused bitterly. As if in answer to her question, the wind picked up, tossing grains of sub-zero snow against her face.

The whole thing had seemed innocent enough when Cid called her to his office and made the announcement that he had a mission for her. At the time, it had seemed better than sitting around Garden, so she'd accepted without bothering to listen to the details. She was to track down a war criminal - Seifer - and bring him back to Balamb. The mission sounded simple, and Quistis had foolishly assumed that Seifer would be easy to find. His tracks, however, had led her across the world more than once over. She'd been to Galbadia, Fisherman's Horizon, Esthar, Centra, and back to Balamb before finally tackling Trabia.

"I don't know how Selphie could stand living here," she muttered, her mood dipping as low as the temperature. Under the protection of her thick mittens, which were lined with pungent snow lion fur, she flexed her fingers. The locals had sold her the snow lion coat and mittens by insisting that the hollow fur fibers would keep her warmer than anything else. However, they hadn't mentioned the strong, spicy odor.

Digging deep in search of the will to move on, she rose a hand to shield her eyes from the icy wind as she focused on the not so distant mountains. Their tops were glazed with staunch ice caps, ones that she knew for a fact never melted. There were a few low lying passes between them, game trails that were intoxicatingly beautiful in the right season. It was Quistis' luck that Seifer would chose to travel - or, rather, flee - in the midst of deep autumn.

Her eyes, which were stinging and dilated, traveled along the landscape in the direction she would take. His attempt to allude her further by hiding in terrain he felt she wouldn't risk traversing was something she felt compelled to fight. The longer she was away, the more she began to miss being home. Garden had felt tight and suffocating, but the warm company of her friends and comfort of her long unused bed seemed like Heaven in comparison to the bitter Trabia tundra.

"Shit." She muttered the curse upon looking up into the darkening sky. The already weak sunlight was being blotted out by low stratus clouds. Was she to never have a stroke of good luck? Grumbling under her breath, she picked up her pace and tried to focus on the still fresh tracks in the snow. _It would just figure if I tracked him all this way only to loose the trail in a snowstorm_, she thought bitterly.

She knew she couldn't be far behind, the tracks through the hard, crusted snow were still fairly fresh. Of course, if there hadn't been new snowfall in a few days, he could be a substantial distance ahead. An angry sneer made its way across her lips as she realized he could be sitting in the warm, dry interior of some little village tavern.

In that case, he would be drinking...probably in excess. Seifer was a mean drunk if she ever saw one. She wasn't sure what was preferable, finding him sober with all of his faculties intact or coming across him under the influence. Either was a toss of the dice, gambling with her life -- whatever life she had left to give anyway.

The mountains before her loomed high and heavy. She'd never spent any substantial amount of time in Trabia. Balamb was never cold, not enough to snow anyway. Consequently, she wasn't quite sure how to deal with the sudden wind chill or make her way through the drifting snow. The only advantage she had was that Seifer knew as little about surviving in the ice and snow as she did. They were on equal footing.

She breathed out and watched her breath float in front of her face.

Through the cloud of her life, she spied a distant light. Snow swept over it for a moment, making it seem to blink and waver like a distant star. Narrowing her eyes, she focused on it, trying to figure what exactly the light was. Seifer could have stopped and built a fire, or it could be a weird sort of reflection off the snow. On the other hand, the light could be from a town which, Quistis reflected, would be more than welcome.

Picking up her pace, she pulled her hood a little tighter around her face. The fur brushed her cheeks making them feel slightly oily.

The brittle snow crunched loudly but the sound was somewhat lost in the now roaring wind. Quistis could feel tears welling up in her eyes from the cold, dry air and blinked hard a few times to rid herself of them.

The light loomed closer, and she could make out the ridged outline of a small town. The thought of something warm to drink and a bed for the night forced her blood to flow a little faster. Raising a gloved hand to shield her eyes, she went toward the village at a blind run, only realizing how small the place really was as it lurched forward at her.

A small cozy looking building was the first she came across. The lattice work on the windows and flickering glow from inside reminded her distantly of Winhill. Wiping her nose on her sleeve, and hardly believing she'd done something so disgusting afterward, she knocked solidly on the door.

"We're closed," a voice barked from inside. "Can't you see we're gonna have a hell of a storm? Get back home."

Quistis stood in shock for a moment, not quite sure what to do.

"I'm a little too far from home for that," she called back, trying to ignore the sound of her teeth clacking together.

There were murmurs from inside a moment before the door swung open and light from a roaring fireplace flooded out onto the snow. A man stood in the doorway, stout with a dark beard and glasses. He looked her up and down once with his dark eyes, then stepped back and invited her in with a wave of his hand.

"What's a little thing like you doing out here?" he asked, slamming the door behind her. Quistis had never considered herself particularly petite, but in comparison to this man she may as well have been a dwarf.

She opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off before the words even had a chance to form on her tongue.

"Never mind, it doesn't matter," he shook his head. "I suppose there's some room for you upstairs, but just for tonight. This storm's going to be driving a lot of people in and I'm going to need all the room I've got for paying customers, understand?" He narrowed his eyes and walked over to a long bar. "Drink?"

"Do you have anything warm?" she asked hopefully. The little tavern was empty except for the man and herself but was well warmed by the fire. Feeling her joints ease up once again, she pushed her hood back off of her head.

"Some cider maybe?" he bent down behind the bar and came up with a mug. "Pretty little scrap you are...traveling alone?"

"Yeah." She pulled off her mittens next and stuffed them into one of her pockets. The large coat hid her whip and she was certain he didn't even suspect that she was a SeeD, or, more appropriately, a bounty hunter.

"Got some other guests upstairs," he announced gruffly. "Probably won't bother you much, but I suggest you stay in your room anyway."

"What sort of guests?" she asked, hoping beyond hope that one of them would fit Seifer's description.

"What do you mean what _sort_?" he asked suspiciously. "What does it matter to you?" As he spoke he poured some steaming cider into the mug he'd set out earlier and pushed it toward her. Quistis sat down on a stool in front of the bar and carefully picked up the warm ceramic mug in her chilled hands. Tilting it to her lips she relished the feel of the hot liquid pouring into her mouth. She could still feel it in her stomach after she swallowed.

"Was just wondering," she shrugged, not sure yet if she wanted to tell him exactly who she was.

"Lucky you didn't freeze," he announced suddenly, gesturing toward the window. "Going to blizzard, can feel it."

"Really?" Quistis asked through another gulp, not really paying attention.

"Broke my leg as a kid, can always feel the blizzards coming," he shrugged. "Don't drink that too fast...let it sink in a little."

"Why?"

"You'll get drunk if you haven't eaten," he replied.

"Damn." Quistis almost dropped the mug. "Why didn't you tell me it was alcoholic before you gave it to me?" He only shrugged and offered her some bread. Frowning angrily, she grabbed it out of his hand and took a large bite. The last thing she needed in the morning was a hangover. If Seifer got far enough ahead of her she knew she'd probably never find him again. After all, it was only a fluke that she'd found him out in Trabia.

"How much do you want for the room?" she asked, reaching into her pocket for some money.

"Don't worry about it," the man waved a hand. "On the house...you don't have anywhere else to go anyway."

"Thanks," Quistis smiled, appreciative of his generosity.

"Not a problem," he smiled, rolling back his large shoulders and sticking his chest out like a spring robin. Almost choking on her bread, Quistis smiled. She couldn't help getting the feeling that he didn't see women very often.

"In that case, could you show me to my room?"

He nodded and she followed him up a set of old stairs that groaned loudly under his substantial weight.

"The guy next to you's a rough one," he whispered. "Been through once or twice before. Might want to avoid him." Pulling a key off a long ring of them, he unlocked a door and Quistis hesitantly stepped inside.

"Is there somewhere I can clean up?" she asked.

"No shower I'm afraid," he shrugged. "I can bring you up a basin if you want."

"I'd appreciate that."

He left, leaving Quistis alone in the darkness of her room. Tomorrow she'd set out again, up the pass and through the snow. Seifer was out there somewhere, and she was going to find him. She could almost hear the sound of his voice...he was close, and she was determined to find him.

*This is loosely based on an episode of the show Due South. Those of you who have any clue what I'm talking about when I say Fraser and Victoria...Shhh! Don't tell! This doesn't end exactly the same anyway. 


	2. Into the Dark

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Seifer...Quistis...Trabia...none of these things are mine.

A/N: Okay...I'm no longer quite sure how I'm going to end this. I had what I thought was the perfect end for it, but now I'm thinking I might want to take this in a different (less dark) direction and just post an alternate ending. Any thoughts?

Chapter 2: Into the Dark

Seifer rolled over in bed, listening to the heavy steps going past his door. Tucking his arm under his head he listened carefully, noting the sound of the big basin being drug along the floor. People didn't normally show up at the tavern in late evening demanding a bath. Puzzled and more than a little curious, he brushed the blankets off his legs and leapt out of bed.

The past few months that he'd spent in Trabia certainly hadn't been the best of his life, but the people were nice enough and didn't ask any questions, which was enough to make him feel a little at home, if not comfortable.

Running a hand through his hair and tightening the knot at the front of his sweatpants, he cracked the door open. The owner of the tavern, a big dark man, was standing outside the next door running his palms along his thighs.

"What's up?" Seifer asked, looking down at the makeshift bathtub.

"Got us a lady," he grinned, showing more teeth than one man should have.

"A lady, huh?" Seifer leaned lazily against the doorframe. "What's she look like?"

"Oh no you don't," he waved a hand in the air dramatically and lowered his voice. "This one's mine."

"You think so?" Seifer grinned.

"Come on, you're going to leave in the morning anyway," he pointed out. "Leave her alone and in my hands."

Seifer didn't particularly feel like going on any romantic conquests, so he shrugged and nodded his acquiescence. The last thing on his mind was getting tangled up with some girl, even if he hadn't been able to get in a good tangle in a long while. His bed since the Sorceress War had been little but cold and lonely, most recently it had been snowy. There were some things that women just didn't appreciate, and hiding in the depths of the most unforgiving territory on the planet was one of them. For him, Trabia was a sanctuary.

"She's all yours," he announced, much to the bigger man's delight. "But I eat on the house."

"Deal."

Seifer had found that money was a commodity that people saw evil in when they had it and good grace in when they didn't. The limited amount of funds that he had needed to last him for an extended amount of time, and he felt that it was worth his time and energy to try and conserve it.

He ducked back into his room, leaving the other man to woo his lady in peace. Seifer, after all, had bigger things to worry about.

Someone was looking for him, and that someone was starting to get close. In the morning he would have to set out again for the mountains and hope to make it over the pass before the blizzard cut off the route. The snow was already deep, but the year had been dry and a few leaves were still clinging stubbornly to tree branches. With the oncoming storm, he could get to the other side of the mountains and cut off any way for whoever was trailing him to follow.

Yawning, he stretched and scratched distractedly at his belly. The cold, wood floor pressed up against his bare feet, causing him to shudder and climb eagerly back into bed.

His gear loomed in the corner like a dark shadow: snow shoes, a heavy coat made from the hide of a Mesmerize and lined with snow lion fur, thick wool socks, mittens, heavy pants, and boots. The things he had accumulated to travel across the ice and snow were made out of every conceivable type of Trabian monster and had a very distinct scent that he'd only recently been able to ignore. Against the pile of insulated garments and water resistant hide rested his gunblade.

From his vantage point on the bed, he looked over at the weapon, following its long curve with his eyes. Hyperion...it had been with him through thick and thin and never once failed him. Named for the sun God, the bringer of harmony and higher thought, Hyperion was a name meant to enrich and foster life. Certainly, the name wasn't one Seifer easily associated with himself. Yet somehow, the gunblade had fallen into his hands and never left. He counted it as his most prized possession, and a low smile crossed his lips as he envisioned himself fighting with it...like an extension of his body.

Shaking off the nostalgic feeling that was quickly overtaking him, he settled back down into bed and listened to the howl of the wind outside. He hadn't been in Trabia long enough to experience a winter blizzard. He wasn't at all sure how long they lasted or just how much snow one would dump on the ground. However, as he listened to the ice and snow slam into the side of the building he couldn't help but assume that the storm was at its worst.

In the next room, he heard something hit the wall and wondered if the tavern man was getting his lady. Somehow, Seifer got the impression that the other man didn't get a lady all that often and found himself wondering what little siren was bedded in next to him.

A brunette maybe? Short and petite with a fragile build?

Or maybe she was a blonde...dark hair maybe?

He envisioned her in his mind, combining details of all sorts of beautiful women he'd met in his life. The vision his mind produced was nebulous at best, but he found the activity of putting together a picture pleasantly distracting.

A door slammed and laden footsteps made their way past Seifer's door and down the stairs.

Seifer chuckled to himself, wallowing in a bit of male pride for a few moments. He laid for a few more long moments before coming to the conclusion that he wasn't going to fall asleep. Shrugging, he got out of bed and pulled on a pair of white and gray flecked wool socks.

"Thought you'd be preoccupied," Seifer chuckled as he made his way down the stairs and up to the bar.

"Yeah," the other man shrugged, casting his dark gaze down at Seifer's hands. "You can have her."

"Feisty?"

"Cold."

"No better than the blizzard, huh?" Seifer sat down and leaned against the bar.

"Not blizzarding yet," he replied. "This'll probably continue until around midnight and then the snow'll stop."

"That's good." Seifer sat back for a moment and took the mug of cider offered to him. In the morning he'd be free to leave without feeling hindered by the continuing storm. He also knew that the storm would have to continue much longer than the next few hours to completely cut off the pass. Silently, he breathed a long sigh of relief and looked back up at his host.

"You want her?"

"Hmm?"

"The woman...you want a shot at her?"

"Oh." Seifer hadn't expected the offer but seriously thought it over for a few moments before coming to the same decision he had before. He needed his sleep, not a roll in the sheets.

"Well?"

"Nah...from what you say she's probably not my type."

The two sat in silence for a few moments, Seifer taking long drinks of cider and hammering out his plan for the morning. He'd get up early, get a good breakfast, and then set out as soon as he could. He had no idea how far it was to the mountains, they looked awfully close but the distance was hard to gauge. He hoped to at least reach them by the next night and find a good place to bed down for the night, then continue over them the next morning. He'd have to borrow some supplies from the tavern, things that likely wouldn't be missed like a little flour. Then he could make a quick breakfast over a fire.

The whole thing was a huge risk, the kind he wouldn't normally take, but for him there were only two ways to walk and one was only slightly darker than the other. He'd risk death in the snow to avoid death at the hand of bounty hunters. Dead or alive...was that the kind of reward that had been put out for him? Was Garden behind it? Did he really care?

"Have a big breakfast ready for me in the morning," Seifer demanded, setting down his empty glass. "I'm going to be leaving pretty early."

"Sure, I have nothing better to do."

"Thanks," he replied with a teasing grin.

The woman's door was closed when he walked up to his room. He wasn't sure if he expected it to be open, he was just a little disappointed to find it firmly shut. She must have been asleep because no light was shining through the crack at the bottom. That or she was sitting in the hot bathwater in the dark. He had to admit, that was an intoxicating image.

"Been alone too long, Seifer..." he shook his head firmly and walked into his own room. The bed was waiting for him in the darkness, warm and dry, but empty. A little company, he reflected, would be nice from time to time. He was growing so weary of being alone.

Waiting there, waiting for him in the dark, was always nothing but a haunting misery. Perhaps loosing himself out in the downy snow wouldn't be such an awful thing. Survival...what was survival when there was nothing worth living for?

Troubled by the path of his thoughts, he turned his attention back to the woman in the next room and his image of her. Tonight at least he was safe, and that alone was enough comfort to allow him to drift off to sleep.


	3. Morning Haze

Rating: PG-13

A/N: Okay, I've decided not to take this fic in the direction I had intended it to go. For those of you interested exactly where I might have taken it, I'm going to post an alternate ending when I'm done. This chapter, however, marks the point where the alternate ending will begin. Just for future reference...

Chapter 3: Morning Haze 

Quistis rolled over in bed. Her muscles were loose and warm under the thick blankets, and she huddled down further into them. A low din rising up from the floorboards penetrated her lazy cocoon, causing her to roll over again in a foolish attempt to escape the sound. When it didn't go miraculously away, she cracked her eyes open.

Dim...even dismal...her little room loomed around her.

Figuring from the lack of light that the sun had yet to come up all the way, she pulled the covers up over her head.

"What do you mean it's not done?" A loud voice trailed by her door accompanied by footsteps and a tingling sensation in the back of Quistis' mind. The voice struck her as familiar somehow, but she couldn't put her finger on why. Sleepily, she pushed the thought out of her mind and tried to ignore the lingering feeling of deja vu.

Closing her eyes again, she let her mind drift away from the Trabian inn. She was back at Garden, dressed to kill in a little black number that highlighted just how golden blonde her hair was and sapphire blue her eyes. Naturally, the vision that she was, other women were giving her jealous stares as she walked by. The men allowed their jaws to drop in awe.

Grinning to herself, Quistis fell headlong into her makeshift dream.

There was one person on her mind this night -- yes, it was night...the stars shining above and a warm, fragrant spring breeze making its way through the dance floor. The man on the other side of the dance floor, near the balcony gently fingering a long, fake vine held her gaze. He was tall with dark hair and had clear hazel eyes. His broad shoulders filled out the SeeD uniform and made the tuck of his waist more noticeable. He was hot, burning strait through her, and he was the only thing she could see.

His name was Devin.

Her eyes fluttered open for a moment. Devin...she missed him. Even though she knew it was silly to miss him, she did. They had never really been anything other than friends, she was the only one who had really wanted to become more. Devin had the suave draw of Irvine without the cocky air, he was oblivious to his own physical attributes and never flaunted them.

She'd kissed him once. It had been wonderful, even when he lightly set her away from him. Devin had become an obsession, she'd thought about him day and night. She'd never been so wrapped up in another person, and her unrequited love for him brought out a whole new Quistis Trepe.

Tossing off the blankets, she leapt up out of bed. It was no more than a torment to sit around in bed day dreaming about things she couldn't have. Besides, the search for Seifer was not yet over. She'd have to leave early to catch up to him, and then....then she wasn't sure what would happen. There was part of her that looked forward to a brawl and another that hoped to find him resigned and ready to give himself up into her custody. Knowing Seifer, he wouldn't give up without a fight. Grudgingly, she supposed that could be an admirable quality.

She didn't remember him very clearly. There were things that she remembered, but she didn't really remember _him_. Seifer was as much a stranger to him as the man working the bar beneath her feet.

Reminded of him, she frowned and hurried to get dressed. She pulled on a heavy, colorful sweater and a pair of jeans over the insulation of some long underwear. She'd never worn anything under pants before, and it had taken some getting used to. The extra warmth was well worth the initial discomfort.

Pulling her hair back into a pert ponytail, she swung her door open and started down the stairs. The smell of pancakes hit her at the very top of them and her mouth was watering by the time she reached the bottom.

"Wow! That smells delicious!" she announced.

Two people looked up at her, both of which were people she had never seen before. The two men, both of whom she guessed were in their mid to upper thirties, stared steadily at her.

"Breakfast?" she asked, feeling a little foolish.

"Yep."

There was a moment of awkward silence, and Quistis made her way over to the window in order to somehow ease the tension. She was amazed to see nothing but snow when she looked outside. The storm had not yet stopped and the snow was quickly piling up.

"Whoa!" she stepped back in amazement.

"Snowed in," one of the men announced. "May as well get comfortable."

"Snowed in?" she spun around. "What do you mean _snowed in_?"

"I mean that unless ya want to burrow through the snow, ya gotta stick around."

"You're kidding!" She turned back to the window, realizing for the first time that it wasn't early morning and that the darkness was due to the snow and the storm. "I can't stay here! How long is this going to last?"

"Dunno."

"How can you not know?" she demanded. "You live here, don't you? You should know how long these things take."

The two shrugged, and she let out a long breath. Tapping one foot impatiently, she crossed her arms across the front of her chest. If she was snowed in, Seifer probably was as well. Unless he'd been able to make it over the mountains, in which case she'd probably never find him. Letting out a long groan of frustration, she walked up to the bar and sat down on one of the stools, resting her chin in her hands.

"Where's the guy who runs this place anyway?" she asked, dreading having to spend the next few hours, let alone days, in his company. He wasn't a bad man, was really quite generous and friendly, but he felt a little too friendly toward her.

"Does the Duchess need something?" He came out of a back room behind the bar as if by magic, a pan in his hand, inside were a pair of still hot pancakes.

"Something to eat would be nice," she smiled, flushing for the second time that morning. He curled up his nose at her but retrieved a plate and tossed the two pancakes onto it.

"Butter and syrup's over there if you need it," he announced gruffly, gesturing in the direction of the other two men. "Gonna go broke if I keep feeding everyone on the planet like this..." he grumbled under his breath as he walked away again.

"Not a morning person?" the quieter of the two men asked when she snatched a bottle of maple syrup from their table.

"Actually, I like mornings just fine," she replied.

They didn't say anything else, and she finished off her first pancake in relative peace. The sound of footsteps on the stairs interrupted her first bite of the second one and instinctively she turned to see who was coming down.

She froze and her fork fell from her hand to clatter against the plate. He had a similar reaction, his muscles visible tensing, and for a long moment they both stared at one another, their blood rushing and neither sure what to do. Neither of them were armed, Quistis had left her whip with the rest of her things, and Seifer didn't have his gunblade hanging at his waist.

"Seifer..." she choked out, completely caught off guard. He looked different than she remembered. His hair was slightly longer and there was the shadow of a beard spattered across his jaw. He was still tall and muscular, but now he was lean and taunt, thin and corded.

He seemed just as unsure of what to do as she was, this certainly wasn't how she'd anticipated their meeting. She hadn't expected him to look so...haggard. He had the look of someone who hadn't been well treated for a while, the look of a person who was always on edge.

When the shock began to drain out of her system, she launched off the stool. He darted in the opposite direction, back up the stairs. She knew what he was going for, and she couldn't let him get to it or she wouldn't stand a chance against him.

She threw herself at him, using all of the leverage she had to bring him down by the waist. They both crashed to the ground at the top of the stairs, Quistis hitting both of her knees painfully. He turned in her grip, trying to throw her off of him.

"Damn it, get off of me!" He wrenched her away from him, giving her a shove that almost sent her back down the staircase.

"Stop!" Quistis, rusty from not having been in a real fight for a while, fumbled for something to cast against him. The first thing she came up with was a simple, easy thunder spell. It was enough to get his attention, and it certainly paused him as the electricity made his muscles contract involuntarily. Back on her feet again, she leapt at him, knocking him over.

"Quistis..." he was on his stomach and had to crane his neck to look at her. "_You_? You're the bounty hunter?"

"I'm not a bounty hunter," she insisted, sitting on top of him and trying her best to keep him down. "I'm on a mission from Garden."

Suddenly, he stopped struggling, and rested his forehead against the hallway floor.

"And what exactly do you plan to do with me?" he asked, the sound of his voice muffled. "We're stuck here."

Reminded of that fact, she had to admit that she didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to do with him, she only knew that she couldn't allow him to get away from her. He much stronger than her and could easily over power her. He wasn't...why wasn't he? She looked down at the back of his head, and then shook hers firmly.

"Stuck here or not," she announced. "I'm taking you back."


	4. Captivity

Rating: PG-13

A/N: Blah...this chapter sucks. I keep talking to people as I write, and it doesn't help that I've been reading a TON of thrillers lately...my dialogue is kind of empty...sorry. 

Chapter 4: Captivity

She looked different than he remembered her. Seifer sat on the floor and watched her pace back and forth in front of him. After she'd informed the other two men staying at the tavern that he was a criminal and she was a SeeD sent from Garden to bring him in, they had been more than happy to help her restrain him. Not that much effort had really gone into controlling him. As much as he was inclined to fight tooth and nail from being taken back, he knew that there really was nothing she could do until the snow melted or someone was able to dig them out. That could take a while, and it gave him enough time to devise some way out of the mess he'd fallen into.

Still, he couldn't get over how much she had changed. She used to have that innocent, intelligent look. She no longer wore her little wire rimmed reading glasses. The fish tail was gone, as were the long golden tresses that hung over her shoulders. She'd cut her hair short, how short he couldn't tell because she'd pulled it back into a pony tail.

She wasn't wearing a dress. He couldn't specifically remember seeing her in pants before. She didn't look quite as innocent as she'd used to either, she wasn't a girl anymore. Quistis Trepe, who had been a woman in mind for years, had finally become one in body. It wasn't even so much that she was filled out, she'd always been filled out, but she had an air to her that spoke of experience.

"I don't know where you think I'm going to go," he grumbled, pulling at the bindings on his hands. "I'm just as stuck here as you are."

"Seifer, shut up and just let me think for a second," she bit out, narrowing her eyes with blatant hostility.

"You've been thinking for the past few hours," he replied. "I haven't eaten yet, and I'd like to at some point."

"You're a prisoner," she reminded him. "Best you don't complain too much."

He couldn't believe that they'd sent Quistis after him, off all the people in Garden she was one of the last ones he'd expected. He'd thought maybe Zell, or even Squall...but Quistis? Hell, at one point they'd even been distantly friendly toward one another. She was his concerned instructor back then, although she'd been distracted and all-together more concerned about Squall.

"Prisoner for what?" he asked. "What are you detaining me for?"

"War crimes," she replied, pausing as she did so. "Don't tell me you don't remember."

"I remember you telling me I wasn't your favorite student anymore," he answered, sending her a teasing smile.

"Don't taunt me, Seifer. I'm not the Quistis you remember."

"So I noticed."

She definitely grown a little harder. He wondered why, if something had happened to her or if she'd just grown stiffer over time. She was still bossy, at least that much had remained the same.

"I'll have someone bring you up something to eat," she informed him, tucking her fingers in her belt loops.

"Why, where will you be?" he asked.

"Right here."

"Doing what?"

"Keeping an eye on you."

"Dammit...where the hell do you think I'm going to go?" he demanded angrily. "Have you looked outside lately?"

"I'm not worried about you going anywhere," she replied, gripping her whip firmly in her right hand. Her knuckles were white and every muscle in her body was stiff with apprehension. Seifer didn't follow at first what she meant, and it only dawned on him when she sat down across from him.

She was worried that he would attack her. That he would simply do away with her rather than allow her to take him back. It wasn't really a bad idea, and he supposed that if he was that sort of person it would be a good plan. But, however much he hated the thought of going back, he didn't think he could really bring himself to murder Quistis. They'd known each other since they were children, she'd practically been his sister. There were all sorts of things Seifer would do, indeed all sorts of awful things that he had done, but there was a line that even _he_ wouldn't cross.

Of course, he had to look at it all from her perspective. As far as she was concerned, he'd tried to kill her before. What was there to stop him from trying again?

Sighing, he slumped against the wall and watched her. If she thought so badly of him, there wasn't much he could do to change her mind.

"So then I just have to sit here until the blizzard's over and the snow melts?" he asked.

"That's the plan."

"You really want to sit here and watch me that long?" He was looking for the perfect string to pull, and wasn't having very much luck. There had to be something that would allow Quistis to give him back his freedom, or relative freedom at least. 

"No, quite honestly," she shrugged. "But I don't have much choice."

"Oh, I think you do."

"Seifer..." she leaned back a little and rolled her eyes. "You're not going to sweet talk your way out of this. Do you have any idea how long I've been searching for you? I've been all over the world twice over trying to find you, and I'm not about to just let you go now that I've finally got you."

"Why'd they choose you anyway?" he asked. The question was on his mind anyway, so he figured he had the perfect opportunity to ask. He hoped her answer would provide him some way out. Maybe she was being forced to look for him and only really wanted to go back. 

"I volunteered."

He stared at her, hardly believing that was her answer. She'd volunteered. Garden had been looking for a bounty hunter, and Quistis had taken up the challenge. She was after his head, or the money...probably both. He couldn't really blame her, he figured he'd make one hell of a bounty hunter himself, but he couldn't help feeling distantly betrayed and more than a little angry. Fuming, he turned his gaze away from her.

The day wore on, and they sat in silence. Quistis read a book for a while, a romance novel judging from the curvy scrawl on the pink front. Seifer childishly refused to talk to her. He was angry yet, and he preferred instead to sit and simmer. 

Frowning, she suddenly tossed the book down and groaned.

"That was awful."

"Then why'd you read it?"

"Well, I didn't think it was going to be when I picked it up," she rolled her eyes. "But seriously, I don't know what the author was thinking. I swear, she just stopped in the middle of everything and left about a million things unresolved."

"Maybe she's planning a sequel," he shrugged.

"I doubt it," Quistis snorted. "If she wrote it, no one would read it."

"You read the first one," he pointed out. "Finished it too...she obviously knows something you don't."

"That's not very likely."

"What's it about?" To hell with not talking, Seifer was bored out of his mind. Talking about a book was innocent enough, it didn't imply that he was any less angry than he was and it didn't invite any sort of discussion of personal matters.

"Why?" she arched an eyebrow suspiciously.

"Just wondering," he shrugged. "I'm bored, toss me a bone here."

"You want to read it?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter and a hint of a smile playing across her mouth.

"Not really," he replied defensively. "I've got my hands tied behind my back anyway."

"Right," she laughed. "I should probably feed you."

"That's for damn sure."

"Don't cuss, Seifer," she waved a finger at him. "It's not very becoming."

"God forbid."

Shaking her head, Quistis picked up her whip again and walked over to him, motioning for him to get up off the floor. Seifer's butt was thoroughly asleep and tingled painfully when he pushed himself up with his feet. Cringing, he pulled out of her grip when she grabbed his arm.

She escorted him down the stairs, holding firmly onto his sleeve as he went. He found himself wondering miserably if she was going to untie him to let him eat or feed it to him like a baby. He wouldn't put it past her to humiliate him on top of everything else. The least he felt that he should have coming toward him was a little respectful fear.

The three men looked over at them as they walked in. They seemed to fear Quistis more than they did him, and he couldn't really blame them. She had, after all, brought down a man bigger than them. Well, except for the Tavern keeper...Seifer couldn't remember his name...he was a big guy.

"Don't try anything," she whispered, pulling at the knot around his hands.

"I'll be good," he promised.

Quistis paid for lunch for the both of them and sat across from him as he ate. It was some kind of stew, he preferred not to guess what kind of meat was in it. The vegetables were good though, and he even had to admit that the mystery meat had a tangy, pleasant sort of taste. Most of all, he was relived to no longer be sitting on the floor in Quistis' room. She wasn't exactly good company, and he knew that if he had to sit there another day he was going to loose his mind and just kill himself.

His wrists were a little stiff, and he worked at them gently in between bites. The blood was just starting to flow back into his fingers and backside when Quistis finished her meal and turned her unwavering stare back to him. There was an especially unnerving quality to her look, but he couldn't put his finger on what exactly was bothering him about it.

He looked hard at her when she finally turned her gaze away, trying to peel away the layers to find the Quistis he had once known. This woman sitting in front of him was so different...he couldn't even imagine that she had once been the impish little blonde he used to chase on the beach. She always told on him, he never got away with anything around her. Whether he was defacing one of her dolls or pulling her hair, Matron always knew twenty seconds later and he received his just rewards.

Maybe, he thought, it wasn't so impossible that she'd been the one to volunteer to come after him. Telling on him...bringing trouble and punishment into his life...never letting him forget.

Forget what? He didn't really want to forget, but sometimes he remembered all too well.

They'd all seemed like monsters to him, trying to kill the very woman who had raised them. Coupled with the dreams, the whole experience had been like a long, drunken interlude from a movie. He remembered the dreams only vaguely, and he often wished that he could have them back.

"You done?" she asked.

"Yeah...I'm done," he replied.

Minutes later, he found himself back on the floor in her room. The day was going to be terribly long, and the next even longer. He supposed that they could be stuck for upwards of a week. If he had to spent every moment of it as he currently was, he might reconsider whether or not to kill Quistis.

He laughed as the thought crossed his mind, and he looked over at the oblivious Quistis. She reclaimed her place on the bed, not about to be uncomfortable herself.

"You could toss me a pillow to sit on or something, ya know."

"I could."

"But you won't? Figures."

The pillow flew across the room moments later, landing in front of him.

"Want the book too?" she asked, sneering back at him.

"No, that's okay..."

"Just checking."

Sighing, Seifer wriggled his way onto the pillow. It was a huge improvement to the bare floor. Come nightfall, he'd have to figure something out. He couldn't stay captive forever. There had to be some way to convince her that he was safe. He looked at the book, laying at the end of the bed, and fell into thought. She was a woman after all, he could try and sweet talk her a little...

He tossed that thought away, she'd never fall for something like that from him. Would she? All things considered, he supposed it was worth a try.


	5. Insatiable

Rating: PG-13 (may change)

A/N: This is pretty dialoge based, but I'll get a little more action in later. It's hard to make being trapped in a tavern really exciting....

Chapter 5: Insatiable

The snow hadn't stopped coming down. Quistis was being told by her forced companions that the blizzard was one of the worst to ever hit Trabia. All she knew was that she'd never seen so much snow in her life. She couldn't believe that it was _still_ falling, that she would have to be trapped with Seifer for the next few days. Anything else she could handle - flash floods, hurricanes, earthquakes - but sitting idly as cabin fever set in?

He was laying on the floor in the corner, his head snuggled down into her pillow. He'd been remarkably quiet and well-behaved. The Seifer she remembered would have thrown every cuss word in the English language (and probably a some from a few others) at her for what was happening. She knew that he didn't appreciate being tied up, and she couldn't blame him, but she wasn't about to give him the chance to prove himself either trustworthy or not. His freedom, relative as that may have been, was not worth her life.

Night was setting in; one more than she had ever intended to stay. She felt tired and couldn't quit yawning. Every once and a while Seifer would try and roll over onto his back, only to roll onto his hands and return to his side. She couldn't tell whether he was asleep or not. Really, she'd always assumed that he'd only be so quiet if he were dead. The steady rhythm of his breathing told her otherwise.

Spreading her arms above her head, she laid across the bed and yawned. Things certainly had changed. He'd changed...she'd changed. Or, at least, people told her often that she had changed. She didn't notice it so much. There was the hair, people always noticed the hair. Honestly, she wasn't sure why she'd decided to cut it. Perhaps it was looking in the mirror every morning to the same face...the same lonely, determined, slightly bitter face. She was always stable, a rock in a sea of chaos, and she grew tired of having to be the rock.

She pulled distractedly at the back of her ponytail, forgetting momentarily about Seifer and Trabia. Her hair had grown since then and was past her shoulder blades once again. She'd cut it level with the bottom of her chin, a pert pixie sort of cut. At first, she'd felt liberated...free. It was something no one expected, and people gaped at her in the halls of Garden. Only weeks later when the strange looks and guarded compliments stopped did she start to regret what she'd done.

Seifer yawned loudly, bringing her out of her reverie. He'd rolled over to his other side and was looking at her now across the darkened expanse of the room.

"Need something?" she asked, feeling impatient with him for no apparent reason. Maybe, she reflected, it was the way he was looking at her. The accusation and anger humming in the depths of his green eyes.

"That depends," he replied, his voice taking on a slightly deeper timbre than usual.

"On what?" She too rolled onto her side, resting her head in hand. Seifer groaned and sat up a little.

"You."

"Oh really?" she snorted. "I suppose you want me to untie you."

"It'd be a nice gesture," he shrugged.

"I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

"I don't trust you." There wasn't really any point in making up excuses. The truth of it was that she wouldn't be able to close her eyes knowing he could run her through with Hyperion at any given moment. Regardless, she knew she probably wouldn't sleep. The least she wanted was to feel relatively safe as she laid awake.

"Ow! That hurt, Quistis...you cut me deep." A low smile spread across his lips. He'd never really been the kind for jokes, he was more the type for mean-spirited name calling and teasing. Subtlety was not one of his strong points. She looked at him for a moment, taking in the man she'd once known, and noted just how much he'd changed.

Not knowing what to say, she didn't reply and the room fell once again into a heavy silence.

"You really volunteered to come after me?" he asked.

"Yeah, I did." It was a half truth -- well, really, a three fourths truth. She had volunteered, but not specifically for the mission she was currently on. She'd basically told Cid to send her away, keep her busy and occupied. Garden was providing her no insight into herself, and she thought maybe getting out would help her discover just what she wanted from the crazy, mixed-up world she was living in.

"Why?" He paused. "I mean...I never really thought you hated me more than anyone else."

"I don't hate you." That was a full, one hundred percent, truth. She'd never really hated Seifer, maybe been annoyed or generally pissed off at him, but she'd never _hated_ him.

"Then why are you here?" he asked, no...more like demanded. He was getting angry again. That was much more like what she remembered. The anger, the simmering violence as he pushed people around and away.

"I don't really have anywhere else to be," she replied, not at all sure why she was even bothering to answer him.

"Trust me, there are a million better places to be," he announced. "Of all people, I would know."

"I'm sure you would," she replied, trying her best to sound cool and collected even as her mind started to whir. "How long have you been here anyway? In Trabia I mean..."

"A few months," he shrugged. "I came up through Esthar, didn't think many people would follow me on foot. Didn't really think it would be too traceable either."

"Why?"

"Come on...the monsters in Esthar? How many people are going to bother?" he grunted.

"I did." She'd never gone through Esthar on foot. Really, she wasn't so much afraid of the monsters but that having to stop and fight so many of them would cause her to fall behind. It would really have been a pain to go through all the trouble only to loose her prey in the end.

"Apparently."

They fell silent for a few moments, Quistis looking at the shadow of her prisoner in the dark. His form was slightly hunched over, his back wrenched in a painful looking arch. Guilt, despite herself, crept across her skin. He wasn't a good man by any means, she had to remind herself of that. Yet, she remembered the boy. He hadn't been evil, he'd been troubled...naughty. She'd never dreamed when she was younger that Seifer would ever end up as he had. Pathetic, broken...sitting tied up on the floor with his hands tied behind his back, waiting to die.

"Would you like a blanket?" she asked, needing to find something to satisfy her guilt.

"Sure," he shrugged. Pushing herself up off the bed, she took off one of the heavy blankets and turned back around to hand it to him. She'd already held it out before realizing that he wasn't able to take it from her.

"Sorry," she blushed. "Sit up a little, I'll wrap you up a bit."

He did as she asked, and she bent down with the fluffy, blue quilt laying like a wet rag in her hand. It felt heavier than it had, more resistant to her movements. She could smell him as she wrapped it around his shoulders and waist. He smelled distantly of snow lion, leather, and snow. There was no hint of soap or shampoo to his essence, even though he looked relatively clean. She sat back a little, looking at his thin face and hooded eyes, and wondered what all he had been through.

"You're so thin." She couldn't help making note of his weight.

"I eat fine," he shrugged. "But I travel a lot."

"Why did you come to Trabia?" she asked. "There are much easier places in the world to live. Islands, sandy beaches..."

"People," he replied. "Most people don't recognize me, at least...not until the bounty was put on my head. Now people know me everywhere I go...except here."

"I think they were surprised that I'm a SeeD," she laughed, remembering the look on their faces when she'd floored Seifer with some thunder magic.

"Probably," he smiled a little. "You don't really look the part."

She flopped back onto the floor, feeling the chill from the floorboards seep up through her clothes and into her flesh. The floor that Seifer had sat on all day long, the floor he was going to sleep on.

"I don't like treating you like this," she announced. "This floor is freezing, and I'm sure you're sore from being tied up. But I can't risk that you might escape."

"Escape to where?" he asked, regarding her with his sandy, aqua eyes. "I don't have anywhere to go, and I don't even have a weapon."

Quistis glanced at her whip laying on the bed. It was too far away for her to grab, which meant that it was too far away for Seifer to grab. She doubted he would be able to use the weapon in the first place, but was she willing to take the risk?

"I couldn't hurt you anyway," he sighed. "Not like that."

His statement snapped Quistis to attention. Was Seifer being sensitive? Telling her that he cared? That was something entirely new, but taking in the rest of the changes that had been forged in him, she wasn't sure she could discount it.

"You have before," she reminded him.

"That was different."

"How so?"

"Have you ever gotten drunk, Quistis?" he asked. "I mean...really, really drunk. Where the whole world tilts around you and you can't even tell up from down anymore? It's sort of like that, only everything is half dream. I could see you, but not really you. I remember most of it, but it's hazy."

"Really?" she leaned back on her hands. "So, you're saying that you were under some sort of mind control?"

"I'm not saying anything," he replied. "Other than I wouldn't run you through."

"Why wouldn't you?" she asked, suspicious. "It would solve all of your problems."

"Only until someone else decided to come after me," he shrugged. "I do remember being with you when we were little...I don't know how much you remember. You were my sister...family."

"I'll untie you." The words popped out of her mouth before she was even really aware that she was about to say them. The guilt was still eating at her. The look in his eyes, the painful sway of his body. He didn't really have anywhere to go...it wouldn't do any harm to just let him have his hands for the night. Comfort wasn't something that would be coming to him in spades, she figured she could at least provide him a little.

"Thank you."

"Be good."

"Understood."

He turned, and she pulled at the knots between his hands. He'd worked on them a bit, but had only been able to turn them inside and out, complicating the rope more. Digging her fingers into it, she worked at the knot for a good five minutes before finally getting it untied. It was too dark for her to see his hands, but from merely holding the rough binding in her own, she was sure that they were hurting him.

"Sleep well, Seifer," she sighed, wondering what was wrong with her.

"I will."

She went back to her position on the bed, the insatiable guilt still eating at her. She couldn't help feeling for Seifer, noticing not only the darkness in him but the darkness in others as they thirsted for revenge. Forgiveness was a rare thing that not many people seemed to possess. She felt sorry for the damned Seifer...knowing all the while that she could have easily done the same for a person she cared about. Squall would have done what Seifer did for Rinoa, maybe his treason was actually an indication of the depth of his loyalty for none other than his mother.

"I think I might read that book tomorrow," he announced, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

"You'll hate it," she warned him.

"Better than just sitting on my hands."

"Alright."


	6. Reading Romance

Rating: PG-13

A/N: Hey, sorry about the delay of update. I've been busy with Christmas and school and stuff. Anyway, at long last, here it is! My characterization keeps getting further and further off....sorry. Anywayz, I'll try to get seven out a little quicker.

Chapter 6: Reading Romance

Seifer looked down at the cover of the book in his hands. Pink...he hated pink. The tagline didn't make him anymore excited about his one form of entertainment: _Their love could tear apart cities, and unite souls_. He already wanted to vomit. Quistis was a smart woman, he couldn't believe she would read such trash. They were books that didn't require any thinking at all, mostly because if a person thought about it, they'd realize how stupid the plot was. Of course, she had thrown it down afterward, so maybe he wasn't giving her enough credit.

"You're really going to read that?" she asked from across the room, arching an eyebrow. She'd gotten up some time before he had and was dressed in a fuzzy black and gray sweater. Her hair was down and had no line from her ponytail the day before. It wasn't as short as he'd first thought, down to her shoulder blades. But it certainly wasn't as long as her hair had been when he'd last seen her. Distantly, he wondered again why she had cut it.

"It's not like I have anything else to do," he replied stiffly.

"I suppose you have a point," she shrugged. She hadn't tied him back up, he felt that was some sort of victory. His wrists were slightly raw, not enough to be openly painful, but there was a noticeable redness to his skin.

Trying to hide his distaste, he flipped open the book. Quickly moving past the long list of other books by the author and the dedication (a heartfelt passage to the woman's husband, the "real romantic" in her life) he moved strait to chapter one. Settling down, he started to read...

_ Milla pushed her way through a crowd of people, holding a tray of drinks she was praying wouldn't spill. Her boss at the Deling City Bar, a fat Trabian man named Dutch, wasn't known for being one of the most generous men. Milla felt lucky that she'd even been able to get a job at the establishment, although she was certain it probably had something to do with Dutch's preference for women with red hair. Milla's own fiery locks had been loose the day she'd interviewed, wearing a black skirt that shamelessly showed more than just a little leg. It was a blatant misuse of her womanly wiles, but it had gotten her the job and a monthly paycheck._

"Hey, Waitress!" a man from the other end of the bar barked. Milla ignored him, she knew who he was. Her sister's boyfriend, a tall, somewhat nerdy man named Henri Dobson. He would flag her down eventually, and she was too busy to stop and talk to him anyway.

The night wore on, and Dutch had yet to show up at the bar. He generally arrived around ten, but as midnight came and went she had yet to see hide nor hair of him. Puzzled, she finally made her way over to Henri who was nursing a glass of strong wine. Just like Henri to come into a filthy bar and drink the wine.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Having myself a mint classic," he replied, smiling from behind his thick glasses. "Actually, I was gonna ask you a favor."

"A favor?" she leaned back against the bar.

"Yeah, a favor." He took another sip. "I've got a friend coming into town, needs someplace to stay."

"I don't have room for anybody."

"Sure you do." Henri smiled. He had a nice smile, the kind that drew a person in. "Besides, Sher assures me that the two of you would get along."

"How does she figure?"

"Guess you knew him when you were little or something," he shrugged.

"What's his name?" Milla was intrigued now. She could think of a hundred boys she'd know when she was little, but none that she'd particularly want to see again, let alone live with in her tiny apartment.

"Ryan Krieter," he announced, watching her closely to gauge her reaction.

_Ryan Krieter...Milla felt her feet going out from underneath her at the familiar sound of his name. They had been childhood friends when she was little, prospective lovers when she was young. He'd left her though to go off to a school somewhere, he had high hopes of becoming something big._

She still remembered the bitterness she'd felt when he left her, but she also remembered the way her heart had pounded when he was near her. The way her knees got weak when he kissed her, the way he tasted and smelled. He was intoxicating, the mere thought of him made her want to move in all directions at once.

"You know him?" Henri guessed.

"Yeah. I do..."

Seifer rolled his eyes. He couldn't believe it was getting sappy so quickly. Undoubtedly, the rest of the book would be just as bad. Quistis wasn't paying attention to him, she was digging through her bag for something. Probably another awful book, he reflected.

He was surprised when she pulled out a long, silvery needle. For a second he jumped back, then relaxed when he realized that it was a knitting needle. Gathering up a bundle of yarn, she sat down and went to work, her hands moving with a swift adeptness that belied any assumption that she was a novice knitter.

"You knit?" he asked.

"Sure."

"What are you making?" He put down the book, much more interested in what she was doing than how the waitress felt about her teenage flame.

"A blanket," she replied, holding it up a little for him to see. "It's been an ongoing project. I've worked on it on the trains while traveling around trying to find you."

"Really?" He looked closely at it, taking in the muted colors and erratic patterns. "It's...nice."

"You think so?" she grinned, proud of her creation. For a moment, she looked like the childish Quistis he vaguely remembered. She used to make things and show them off, demanding that everyone see what she had done. The only thing he really remembered was a sandcastle she'd spent an entire afternoon perfecting. He'd kicked it over, and it was the first time he'd done something mean to he that she hadn't run away bawling. Instead, she'd looked up at him with those blue eyes, hurt and angry and determined.

"Yeah," he shrugged.

"Thanks." Smiling a little, she turned back to her blanket and continued knitting. Her head was low and her hair fell over her shoulders. She was pretty when she wanted to be, beautiful in fact. She'd always been startlingly attractive, but had always had trouble with men. His role in the Disciplinary Committee had brought him quite a bit of information on the Trepies. For some reason, he'd tried to keep them under control. He imposed threats on those too openly adoring, keeping Quistis relatively oblivious to the large number of adolescent boys following her every move.

He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to have that many people adore him. No one had ever even particularly like him. Rajin and Fujin, they were...well, he wasn't exactly sure what they had been. Followers maybe. They certainly weren't like the Trepies, were they?

"Enjoying your book?" she asked, disrupting his thoughts.

"It sucks."

"I warned you," she shook her head.

"You read the entire thing?" he asked, looking back down at the hateful pink thing.

"Yeah, boredom does that to a person."

"Sappy shit," he grimaced. "I'd rather read something with action. Ya know, blowing up buildings, assassins, that sort of thing."

"You read much?" she asked, a surprised glint crossing over her eyes.

"Uh...no," he firmly shook his head, covering his tracks. He hadn't anyway, although he'd read quite a bit since leaving Garden. It wasn't very safe for him to be out among people. Aside from running for his life and quite a bit of forced training, he'd picked up a few things here and there to read. Magazines and newspapers were especially nice because they were big enough to hide behind.

"Yeah, didn't really peg you as the literary type," she replied.

"Why not?" he demanded, defensiveness suddenly rising up in him. "Because I'm stupid? You think I'm stupid?"

"No, I didn't say that," she shook her head and narrowed her eyes. "You just admitted that you don't like to read, why are you getting all defensive?"

"I'm not an idiot, you know," he growled. "Just because I don't doesn't mean that I _can't_."

"I never said that you can't read," she retorted, her voice rising. "You're too damn self involved to ever read something and really understand it. You'd be sitting wondering when you'd enter the story!"

"I'm self-involved?" he was on his feet now, the book tossed aside and forgotten. "I'm just trying to survive! The whole world out there hates me, you've been on my heels for Hyne knows how long! Do you know what it's like to look over your shoulder every five seconds because someone might be about to kill you?"

Quistis squared her shoulders, dropping her knitting, and stood up to face him.

"If you don't sit back down this instant, you're going to be tied back up," she announced, her voice low and dangerous.

"Why? Are you scared of me?" he took a step toward her. "Think I'm going to run you through?"

"I'm not scared of you."

"Then why tie me up?" he countered.

"Seifer," she ground out between clenched teeth. "Did you ever consider that if for even a moment you thought about someone other than yourself, you might find the world a little more hospitable?"

"Not even for a moment," he replied.

"Sit down."

"No."

"I untied you in the first place because I thought you'd changed," she announced. "You look half starved, beaten down. But you're not, are you? You're the same old Seifer who dug into Squall's face just for the thrill of it."

"He dug back," Seifer reminded her, tracing a finger along his own scar. "Not that you ever noticed, Miss Un-Self-Involved."

"Sit down." Her jaw clenched and unclenched spasmodically.

Seifer waged his chances against her. He was confident that, if he wanted to, he could easily beat her. Her whip was on the other side of the room, his gunblade was still in his old room. Hand to hand, he was ten times stronger. As long as she didn't have help, he'd come out on top.

She stared up at him, her gaze unwavering in its intensity.

"Seifer..." she let his name slip by her lips, and it sounded almost pleading. Still, there was the essence of instructor to her. That demanding, strong willed woman he'd gone with on so many failed tests.

Turning his back on her, he walked over to the bed.

"Wake me when it's time to eat," he announced bitterly, rolling over so his back was to her.

Romance novels were never realistic. His knees had never been weak, his heart had never begun to pound at the sound of a woman's name. Still, as he closed his eyes and let his anger rumble at a low boil, he couldn't force himself to do away with Quistis Trepe. Self-involved, indeed...she was lucky he'd been alone for so long on the icy flats of Trabia. There was something about her, something that she meant to him. Perhaps Cid had known that when he sent her to get him. He couldn't kill Quistis, he never could.


	7. Common Ground

Rating: PG-13

A/N: Wow! I got this one done quick! My biggest distraction is gone...at a friend's house actually, lol.

Chapter 7: Common Ground

The strange, orange colored tea sat at the bottom of Quistis' cup. She looked down at it, licking her lips a little to savor the strange, spicy taste. It was supposed to be soothing. Whether it actually was or not was beyond the point, her relaxing muscles were as much a part of her mind as what was in her stomach. Seifer was behind her, eating his lunch.

How long had it been that she'd been stuck with him? A week? It certainly felt like it had been a week, when really no less than a day; surely, the longest twenty four hours of her life.

She hadn't slept since taking him into custody, and she knew she would have to at some point. The question of whether she could trust Seifer was still up in the air. He'd raised it himself in the argument that they had. In a way, she was afraid of him, but not like he thought. It didn't particularly frighten her that physically he was extraordinarily imposing. She'd fought off enough monsters twice her size and at least three times her mass that physicality had begun to mean very little to her. Seifer's mind was what frightened her. He was capable of anything, he was a caged animal, feral and instinctive.

"What did you say this was?" Seifer asked the tavern keeper. Quistis once again vowed to find out the man's name.

"Plant the grows up in the hills during August," the man replied, peeking out of the kitchen. "Blue flowery type of thing, that's the roots your eating. Delicious, eh?"

"Very good," Seifer nodded. "Any sort of plants that grow through the winter?"

"Not really." Quistis was only half listening to the conversation. It was beyond her why Seifer was suddenly taking an interest in the local flora. His sudden apparent passion for horticulture was, perhaps, just a way to fill the silence.

"Nothing? Do you just stock up during the summer, or what?"

"Well, some of the shrubs have good roots," he replied. "Berry growing ones aren't very good to chew on. Mostly in the winter, I go for the game."

"Mezmerise?"

"Pretty good if you get 'em in the right season. They're no good in spring when they come out of the mountains...taste like sage."

Quistis wasn't even about to ask what was in her tea, figuring that she was better off oblivious. Outside, the snow was still falling, although it had slowed to soft flakes drifting down. What she could see over the snow bank looked almost inviting. The wind had blown a huge drift against the back side of the building, blocking her window. The front door was firmly anchored shut with a good few feet of solid snow pack. Almost as an afterthought, she realized how lucky she'd been to find a place to stay as the blizzard passed, knowing she would have never survived out in it.

"So, you're really a SeeD?"

She perked up, becoming aware of the man sitting next to her. One of the other men trapped with them, tall and lanky with greasy hair and a few missing teeth.

"Yeah," she replied.

"From one a them Gardens?" he asked.

"Yeah, in Balamb," she covered the top of her cup with her hand, hoping to keep any of her unwanted companion's errant spittle from getting in her tea.

"Balamb?" he looked thoughtful for a moment. "Never been there. Seaside place, right? Never been fond of the ocean, mountain kind of man myself."

"I don't like the snow," Quistis admitted.

"Better'n rain," he shrugged. "So...you're trained then? Combat and the like? Magic?"

"Yeah...I'm trained."

"Oh...so...how'd they train you?" His constant questions, though genuinely full of curiosity, were getting on Quistis' nerves.

"Seifer is a trained mercenary as well, perhaps you should ask him," she announced, glancing at the blonde. His green eyes went quickly from her to the man at her side. He obviously didn't want the fellow with him any more than Quistis did.

The man took one look at Seifer, and turned back to Quistis.

"What sorta weapon do you use?"

"A whip," she replied, stifling a sigh.

"Not very scary," he noted. She'd known when she picked the whip as a weapon that there was a blatant lack of respect for it. When used correctly, the tip of a whip exceeded the speed of sound. A whip expert was a person to fear, able to attack faster than almost any other weapons specialist.

"Very scary when you're on the wrong end," Seifer interceded. "Flick of her wrist'd take out your eye."

The man visibly tensed.

"Oh...really?" He looked questioningly at Quistis, and she nodded gravely. With a short, slightly nervous farewell, he departed to the other side of the bar. Smiling and finishing off her tea, Quistis walked over to Seifer's lone table and sat down across from him.

"Thanks."

"No problem," he shrugged.

Quistis had to admit, all things considered, Seifer was her preferred company among the men she was trapped with. If for no other reason than she knew exactly what to expect of him, and that he was relatively clean and whole.

"I could use the chance to clean up a bit," he suddenly announced under his breath. "Haven't bathed for a while, I've gotta be getting rank."

"I hadn't noticed," she admitted. "I still have the bath in my room, I don't think it's been missed."

"Probably not," he agreed.

She nodded and waited for him to finish eating. It was strange how they, having known one another so long but never liking each other, suddenly found themselves on a sort of level footing. In a strange land, with strange people, the very fact that they were familiar to one another drew them together. Quistis was still fully aware of who and what he was, but it was nice to see a face that she'd seen many times before (and even had all it's teeth).

Working together in some sort of silent agreement, they filled the tub with hot water, carrying it up the stairs from the one faucet in the entire building in buckets. Quistis' shoulder ached by the time they got it full, and Seifer had done more than his fair share of the work. Heaving a long sigh, she flopped down onto the bed.

"Whew...done."

Seifer paused in the middle of the room.

"Yeah...all done..." he looked at her, waiting.

Quistis nodded, motioning toward the water with her hand and laying back. It'd be a nice chance, she figured, to take a nap. The entire room was warmed by the steamy water and the rising humidity was making her feel more at home.

"Aren't you going to, ya know...leave?" he asked.

"No," she lifted her head a little. "I can't just leave you alone in here to do whatever."

"You can stand right outside the door!" he barked. "I'm going to be in the fricking tub! Come on!"

"Yeah, and when I come back in and you've somehow found a way to arm yourself, I suppose you'll still insist you were just taking a bath," she scoffed.

"What the hell...?" he shook his head. "You're just going to sit there and watch me?"

"No!" Her face flushed. "I'm not going to _watch_ you! Hyne, you're disgusting!" A confused look crossed his face, and he opened his mouth to say something only to decide otherwise and shut it again. "I won't peek," she promised, rolling so her back was to him.

"I can't just take a bath while you're right there," he insisted.

"Seifer," she sighed. "You're being bull-headed. Either sit there reeking like a dead snow lion, or get in the water."

"Yeah, like you'd just be willing to strip down and bathe while I sat three feet away!" he waved his hands around erratically.

"Shy?"

"No..."

"Then what's the problem?" she asked. "Hyne...I'm going to be taking a nap. I won't bother you, and I certainly would never want to look. So, just get it over with."

"If you're going to be sleeping anyway, why don't you just sit outside the door?" he asked.

"Because I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," she replied, a firm timbre coming into her voice. "And I probably couldn't even pick you up if I tried. So, this is how it's going to be. I'd rather you be uncomfortable at my infringing upon your privacy than wander in and be killed by my own knitting needles or something!"

"Damn it, Quistis," he sighed. "I'm not going to kill you."

"And I'm just supposed to trust you?"

"Fine!" he ground out and pulled off his shoes. "If you look, I swear I'll get you for it!" His eyes were extremely hostile.

"Like I'd really want to," she rolled her eyes and turned toward the wall again. She could hear various items of clothing falling to the floor, and eventually she heard him step into the water. The sloshing was relaxing, and with a low sigh she closed her eyes.

She was surprised at the images that immediately filled the darkness. Seifer behind her, immersed in the warm water, a ruddy color to his skin. Shaking her head, she tried to drive the image away. It was reinforced by the sound of him moving in the water, driving her crazy.

_ What the hell? _A little panicked, she focused on something else. The first thing that came to her mind was, oddly enough, Matron. Quistis hadn't seen her surrogate mother in a very long time, and she felt a sudden pang of regret. The woman who had taken her and so many other children in, and what sort of gratitude did she show her? Edea's love for her children was unconditional, even Seifer. Quistis was never sure what Edea saw in the troubled boy. She still wasn't. However, Matron was one of the fallen knight's sternest supporters.

"Hey, Seifer? Have you talked to Matron?" she asked, only realizing the words had tumbled out of her mouth when he answered with a firm negative.

"Why do you care?" he asked.

"Was just wondering," she admitted. "She's still on your side, you know."

"Didn't think anybody was on my side."

"I think Edea would probably be on your side no matter what," Quistis announced, believing it wholeheartedly. She was sure that Seifer could murder hundreds of people, and Edea would insist that he'd fallen down some wrong path on life. If she was anything, she was loyal. For some reason, Quistis figured that Seifer should know he wasn't completely alone.

"We have a towel or anything?" he asked, an edge to his voice. "Oh, never mind...found it." Quistis heard him get out of the water, but the provocative image was gone. It had been replaced by that of a little boy, sandy blonde and mischievously naughty. The same boy who cried when he fell, who huddled into the arms of his mother when he was sick. Fallible, not quite as strong as he liked to think, and more loved than he realized.


	8. Cabin Fever

Rating: PG-13....still

A/N: Happy New Years everybody!!

Chapter 8: Cabin Fever

They were trying to dig out, and things weren't going well. The tavern keeper and the two other men had the front door flung open and were valiantly attempting to tunnel through the snow bank with silver wear. The fluffy stuff kept caving into the little holes they managed to make, and more than a little had flooded into the building and was beginning to melt into an unsightly puddle on the wood floor.

_ Idiots._

Seifer leaned back in his chair, feeling remarkably clean and fresh. Quistis, despite the little lecture she'd given him, had banished him from the room so that she could take a bath. With all her bravado, she was still held back by her own fear and pride. The morons to his right were supposed to be watching him, although he got the feeling they felt more at ease pretending he didn't exist.

It reminded Seifer of a dog Matron had when he was little. Mangy little thing, smelled awful, and loved to sit inside and bark at the cats. Once the mutt got outside, he'd run up to the feline, teeth bared with all the bells and whistles of an attack dog. However, if the cat wasn't fooled by the mock charge and stood its ground, the dog simply turned around and pretended the offensive little beast didn't exist. It was easier just to act as if there were nothing there. A threat ceased to exist in some peoples' minds if they wished it away.

On the bright side, Seifer had finally taken the time to find out the other men's names. He was never one for formalities, and with as often as he'd frequented the place in the past month, he'd never once bothered to find out who the people around him were. He'd had bigger things to worry about, namely Quistis.

The big, brawny tavern keeper was Treban. The long vowels sounded nasally when Seifer tried his own tongue at them. Somehow, the name fit the man, and after knowing what one belonged to him, Seifer couldn't come up with one better suited.

The tall, scrawny guy who was oh so fond of Quistis was apparently named (or nick named) Slick. Very proper, considering the greasy tilt of the man's hair and the loose movement of his joints. He looked liked he'd been laying in a vat of vegetable oil for a couple years. His skin was remarkably supple, almost like touching the white of a hard boiled egg, only not quite so slimy.

The other man, older than the other two but not quite as offensive as Slick, was Cam. Whether Cam was short for anything was beyond Seifer's ability of conjecture, partly because he didn't care.

Treban, Slick, and Cam all were currently bickering with one another over the engineering of their hole which had just caved in for the fourth time in the space of an hour. Seifer's own thoughts were that the snow was too loose yet and needed to settle further and stiffen before they would have a chance to dig out. Freshly fallen, heavy and wet, it was like tunneling through sand. Silently, he supposed they would improve their chances if they tried the other side of the building where the wind had already packed the snow.

"What are they doing?" he turned to see Quistis coming up behind him, her eyes riveted on the three.

"Digging," he shrugged.

"Well, obviously," she rolled her eyes. "But they're supposed to be watching you."

"Guess cabin fever is starting to set in," he replied, looking up at her. Her hair was wet, hanging from her head in chunky strands. She looked refreshed, not quite as tired as she had only moments before. He felt energized and bored. Even if he and Quistis were at one another's throats, battling for their lives against one another, it would be something to do.

"Do you think they're going to make it?" she sounded excited.

"Not really," he laughed. A little more snow flooded in, accompanied by a loud curse from Treban, and Quistis nodded in agreement.

"I'd accuse you of sabotage if you were helping," she announced.

"Why?"

"The longer we're stuck here, the more time you have to find a way out of being taken back to Garden," she pointed out. "This is like a godsend for you."

"Doesn't feel like one," he grumbled. His muscles were twitching, needing to do something and achingly tired of sitting around in the static atmosphere of the tavern. Being trapped was a respite in the same way that hell was a release to dying sinners. Well...maybe not that drastic, but the principle was the same.

"I'm not _that _bad of company," she laughed, her mood obviously improved by her new state of cleanliness.

"Need help with the water?" he asked.

"Nope, already took care of it," she replied, cocking her head slightly to the side as she watched the three men continue to dig. "Do you suppose a firaga spell would do the trick?"

"How could you empty it on your own?" he asked, ignoring her question about the spell.

"He's got the rooms all set up with drainage systems," she replied distractedly. "Beyond me why he doesn't just get the right plumbing installed instead of putting in such an elaborate piping system."

"Saves money," Seifer shrugged. "Lower water bill if people have to ask for it. Probably makes up for the money to put the system in."

"Yeah...I suppose you have a point." Her azure eyes were narrowed, her fingers twitching slightly at her side. He could see the wheels turning in her head, noticed the slight change in her stance, and knew what she was going to do before she even took her first step forward.

"Excuse me," she brushed Treban's back with her fingers, and Seifer watched the pliable bend of her body as she arched her back a little. "I'd like to try a little experiment."

All three of them turned and stared at her for a moment. She had her Save The Queen handing from her hip in an elegant, golden loop. Slick's eyes fell on the weapon with obvious apprehension, and he was the first to step away.

"This is a snow bank, not an enemy soldier," Treban reminded in, his voice gruff. Quistis held up a hand and nodded.

"I'm quite aware of that."

Cam moved away shortly behind his buddy Slick, and only the brawny tavern keeper stood in Quistis' way. Somehow, Seifer wouldn't have been surprised if she just casted her firaga spell anyway. However, her restraint and tolerance prevailed as she waited for the man to step aside. When he did, she quickly cast the spell, watching eagerly as light engulfed the room and the heat melted the snow. Water puddled in through the door, running down into the cracks of the floor and all the way back to Quistis' boots.

When the spell died away, they all looked eagerly at the door. The doorframe itself was slightly singed, and the wall of snow was still an immovable force. Puzzled, Quistis took a step back.

"Odd..."

"No real focus," Seifer tossed in his own thoughts. "Probably went too far back."

"Hrm...maybe," she nodded, chewing on her thumb nail for a moment. "Well, sorry about the door." She turned a sheepish face to Treban. Her show of SeeD force was enough to keep him from demanding reparations, and he merely shrugged, mumbling under his breath.

She turned toward Seifer, her face showing for the first time a level of reprimand toward herself. She grabbed his arm as she walked by him, dragging him with her, back into captivity and constant surveillance.

"Dang," she mumbled to herself, shaking her head as they walked up the stairs. "I really thought that would work."

"That's what you get for thinking," Seifer laughed. Her fingers dug into his arm, cutting his low chuckle short.

"Sit down, read your book, and be a good boy," she ordered, slamming the door behind them. The little, pink novel was still sitting where Seifer had last put it down. The air was warm and humid yet, laced with the scent of girly shampoo and soap. Despite himself, Seifer could almost see her in his mind's eye sunk into the steamy bathwater. Being alone was obviously starting to get to him, and he shook off the image and the lingering feelings that it created.

"Not really my style," he finally announced in reply to her command.

"You would have been a SeeD if you'd have been able to take orders, you know," she tossed back, forking her fingers through her still damp hair.

"I give orders," he snorted. "I don't take them."

"Then this will be a learning experience for you," she grinned. She wasn't nearly as flappable as she'd been, and he wasn't getting the sort of responses he was hoping for. He wanted some sort of domination over her, some sort of control. He wasn't gaining it through antagonizing her, even though he admittedly hadn't been putting as much effort into it as he once had. He was fairly out of practice, more used to keeping things low key so as not to draw too much attention to himself.

He was drawn back to the idea of romancing her. Another thing he was horribly out of practice at. Rarely, if ever, had he prefaced relationships. Rinoa, he'd put a little effort into her. Still, he was at a loss where exactly to start with the instructor. He wasn't even sure he wanted to try and gain power over her that way. He felt a little queasy at the thought, and at the same time a little excited.

"Did you see where I put down my knitting at?" she asked, leaning down to rummage through her things.

"No...I was distracted," he replied, trying to add a seductive lit to his voice.

"I'm sure," she shook her head, rolling her eyes. "You could help me look for it, if you're not too busy being distracted."

He took the chance, brushing against her as he bent down to help her search. She moved over, making room for him, and he groaned inwardly. Quistis wasn't an easy woman to trap. He figured he would have to work on his techniques a little.

"Half a blanket doesn't just get up and walk away," she grumbled.

"You have a point," he replied, leaning close to her as he said it. She twitched away from him, turning with a confused look splashed across her face.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine."

"Maybe you should just go back to your book..."

The book! He just about turned around and dived on it. A romance novel was like a peek into the female psyche. Surely there would be some hints inside on how to get a woman all jelly-kneed. He didn't want her to fall in love with him, he just wanted her swaying, giving in. He needed that sort of control, any sort of control.

Giving his head a firm shake to clear out the forming spider webs, he forced himself to be rational. Being stuck in the small space was starting to get to him, he wasn't thinking clearly. Still, the idea was a good one. Fueled by cabin fever, he picked up the novel with renewed zeal.

If Seifer was anything, he was determined. Quistis wouldn't be taking him back to Garden.


	9. Finding the Sun

A/N: Wow! This chapter took me _forever_ to write! It's a tiny bit over-dramatic maybe, but I needed to get away from the fluffy for a bit (fluffy just isn't Seifer). By the way, a characterization issue...my characterization is a little odd in this fic for a reason. #1: They're stuck in a small building with nowhere to go, cabin fever makes people act and think a little crazy (ever see The Shining?) and #2: Things have changed since the game, they're not the same people anymore. Just so ya know that I'm screwing with their character traits for a reason.

Chapter 9: Finding the Sun

The snow had finally stopped falling. At least, that's what Quistis had been told. She wasn't quite sure how anyone could tell what was happening outside. Treban was standing on the other side of the bar, his grizzled white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His dark hair laced across the unusually tan skin of his brawny arms, and his dark eyes were focused on Seifer, even though Seifer was sitting calmly reading a book.

"How exactly are you keeping him under your thumb?" Treban asked, seeming genuinely curious.

"He doesn't have anywhere to go," Quistis replied, knowing deep down that she had precious little control over Seifer. It was easy for her to forget in the confined environment of the little bar that as soon as the snow wasn't blocking the door, he wouldn't be quite so obedient.

She turned her head a little and looked at him, taking in his profile. He certainly wasn't the man that she remembered, and that frightened her a little. The Seifer of old was easy to predict, she could understand and deal with him. This Seifer was more like a starving wolf than the vicious dog of old. He only has so many options open to him, and going back to Garden was probably not one of them. He'd been running for so long that to him it was a method of survival. Seifer was dangerous, something easy to ignore as he sat across from her reading a romance novel.

"Don't you suppose that's a little dangerous?" Treban asked, mirroring her thoughts. "To just let a guy like him wander around like you are, I mean."

"Not for the moment," Quistis shrugged, not wanting to let know of her own doubts. "If he killed me, you and the other two would freak out. Even for Seifer, three against one doesn't make for good odds. His sense of self-preservation will always prevail."

"Smart lady," Treban smiled.

"We'll see," Quistis shrugged. She couldn't assume very much about Seifer's nature. As far as she was concerned, she was more than prepared to encounter a confrontation with him. He was strong, but she had a number of other resources at her disposal.

"Soup?" Treban titled his head a little.

"Depends what's in it," Quistis smiled.

"Chicken, water, a little salt, some noodles..." he grinned. "The usual."

"Sounds good." Treban had immediately made a bad impression upon her. Although he had been kind enough to let her in out of the weather for a night for free, his motives were less than innocent. He liked her, and he didn't like the fact that she was stronger than he'd originally thought. His since improved attitude, however, was one she was finding preferable. There was a certain amount of comforting familiarity with Seifer, but his emotions seemed to be in constant turmoil. She doubted that even he was exactly sure of how he was feeling at any given moment. His instability made him difficult to be around, especially in the enclosed quarters they had adopted.

Nothing, really, had changed because of the storm. They'd called a temporary truce, but when the world once again expanded to include the realm beyond the door, she would do everything within her means to complete her mission. There was a part of her that felt sorry for him, the remnants of her torn memories from when he simply mischievous. She didn't like to see him so worn and beaten as he was presently.

"Hey! Look!" Cam was gesturing wildly about at the window, his pants hanging dangerously loose about his thin waste. Even Seifer glanced up from his book, his green eyes softening a bit as the sunlight, streaming in like a golden ribbon from a crack at the top of the snow line, reflected in the back of them. That stream of natural light, small as it may have been, might as well have been made of real gold the way it made Quistis' heart pound.

"That's gotta be a good sign," Slick, Cam's constant companion, slurred. He'd been drinking most of the morning (at least, Quistis' watch said that it was morning, it was hard to tell for sure). His empty glass sat in the middle of an abandoned table, and Treban moved to fill it once again. Slick's tab wasn't on the house as most of Quistis' meals had been. She figured that the little man would drink enough to pay off whatever she ate anyway, although she did intend to pay Treban before she left.

"At least it will start melting now," Treban shrugged. "Should sink a little when it gets heavy too."

"Then we can dig out," Slick grinned, reaching toward a nearby table for a spoon to reference, but finding none. His failure, however, didn't seem to phase him in the least. He sputtered on excitedly, waving a hand through the light.

The little slit of daylight above the heavy, dark blanket of snow was like a peek into heaven for Quistis. She wanted to throw open the door and run out into it. Cold weather had never been a friend of hers, and she achingly missed the Balamb beach. 

"Wow," Seifer stood up, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"We're going to be out of here any day now," Cam nodded, forgetting his fear of Seifer momentarily in order to smile at him.

That day, or the next, and they would be back out into the world. The laws of the microcosm they were living in would go out the door as quickly as they would. Quistis came to the sudden and hard realization that with the coming of the sun, Seifer would once again cast a shadow. His was a dark, frightening shadow that she didn't want get caught in.

"Seifer," she barked, an edge to her voice. The light was eroding her control of the situation. In the darkness of captivity he gave in to he demands, but with a taste of freedom streaming in through the glass pane he would not longer take her orders without biting back. 

"What?" his head swiveled, and his clear green eyes landed hard on her. 

"Come on, we're going back upstairs," she gestured toward the creaky steps. She was overjoyed and unnerved at the same time. Sunlight meant she could leave, sunlight meant a rough road was immediately around the bend. Seifer slapped the book shut and, with a low grin playing across his features, made his own way up the stairs. 

Quistis found him waiting in her room. He was spread out on the bed, his arms folded behind his head. Under the thin material of the shirt he was wearing, she could see the outline of his ribs clearly enough to count them. Seifer, however, seemed oblivious to the hardened and wiry shape of his body. Pausing in the door to look at him, Quistis found herself wondering what had happened between the end of Ultimecia and their unfortunate meeting in the snowed in Trabian bar. 

"What are you doing?" she asked instead. 

"Thought I'd snag the bed for a while," he grinned. 

"Tired of the floor?" she arched an eyebrow. 

"Very." 

Feeling pent up from having been in the same room too long, Quistis felt a certain amount uneasiness when she closed the door behind her. The rope she'd used to tie up Seifer's hands the first night he'd been her captive were still sitting in a lump on the floor. Her boot hit against it as she paced, feeling like a caged animal. Knowing it would be over soon only made the wait to leave more painful. 

"You shouldn't frown like that," Seifer announced, picking something off of his teeth with his fingernail. "Wouldn't want to be getting worry lines on your pretty face." 

"What?" she stopped, not sure she'd heard him right. He'd changed a _lot_, but not that much. 

"Seems it's bad for your hearing, too," he laughed. He was just being mean, even something that seemed on the front to be a compliment was always some sort of personal slam. He was half starved, run down, and suspicious; but he was still Seifer. 

"Don't go anywhere," she directed him, wrapping her whip around her hand. 

"Where would I go?" 

Shaking her head, she rushed out of the room into the fresh, cool air of the hall. She felt like she was in some kind of prison, and Seifer was her torture. As much as she wanted to hate him, should have hated him, she couldn't. There were times when he seemed so harmless, he'd even been remarkably nice to her through most of the previous few days. He seemed...she searched her mind for the proper word... tired. Tired of running and hiding in shadows always knowing that someone was on his tail. 

Quistis pushed open his bedroom door. She'd only checked into the room from time to time to make sure nothing had been moved. Seifer was very rarely out of her sight, and she was more worried about one of the other three men going inside to play with Seifer's gunblade. 

Hyperion stood where it had for the past few days, secured no longer in a case, but wrapped in Seifer's old and tattered trench coat. Underneath the dingy gray material, the gunblade was still shiny and lethal. Sitting on the side of the bed, she pulled off the cover and looked at her own reflection on the blade's surface. 

A pair of blue eyes stared back at her, framed by blonde hair (not quite as golden blonde as it had been). Nostalgically, she supposed that she'd changed quite a bit since Seifer had last seen her as well. Instructor Quistis Trepe was a long forgotten memory. She would never again be an instructor, and it was doubtful how much longer she would maintain being a SeeD. As soldiers went, she was one of the best, but mercenary work was certainly beginning to wear thin. 

Rubbing her fingers across the metal, she traced the intricate design of the Hyperion. She couldn't recall why Seifer had chosen that particular model. There were more dangerous weapons floating around the market, and a number of them would have probably kept Seifer from ultimately failing at being a knight. Yet, he stuck with the same gunblade through all the years of training and fighting. 

Hyperion...she had to laugh a little. The god of light and the sun, Hyperion was life, beauty, and intelligence. He was everything that made men manly, he was perfection. 

Seifer, who so often brought darkness with him wherever he went, fighting with the patron weapon of the sun. Quistis had to admire the irony. 

She had a sinking feeling that Hyperion would find her along with the light. Seifer would let her lead him about a bit, and then he would kill her and escape. She couldn't take him back through the snowed out mountain passes without his being willing, and Hyne knew he wasn't in the least bit willing. There was no viable way she could think of to travel with him, aside from something akin to a slave train -- tie his hands, lead him like a vicious dog. 

Wrapping his coat back around his gunblade, Quistis lifted the heavy weapon up in her arms and shoved it far under the bed. In front of it she pushed blankets and stray things of Seifer's. Morning was waiting, they were going to leave, plowing a trail through the heavy snow. Closing her eyes, Quistis tried to convince herself that she could accomplish the task ahead of her. 

He was unpredictable and dangerous, in some twisted way a friend and enemy at the same time, and she alone had to take him halfway across the world to die. 


	10. Setting Out

A/N: Gosh, this is a disjointed little fic. Certainly not my best, sorry for that...I just haven't had the time to spend on it I though I would have when I started it. But, I _will _finish it! Just a matter of time. 

Chapter 10: Setting Out

Seifer watched Quistis wrap a long, furry coat around her shoulders. She was getting ready to leave, and he was sitting on her floor with his hands tied behind his back. He wasn't sure when she was planning on letting _him_ bundle up. Her golden, blonde hair was secured firmly behind her head, tied into a elegant looking ponytail. The sheen of her hair was abruptly obscured from his vision by the fur lined hood. 

"I don't know how you're planning on getting out of here," he shook his head. "You really think you can get through any of the passes?" 

"We're going to try," she replied stubbornly. 

"We?" he arched an eyebrow. "Does that mean I might get to put on a coat at some point?" 

"Don't be smart with me," she snapped, sending a sharp look in his direction. A few delicate fingers on her right hand twitched beside her whip, which was anchored to her hip on the outside of her coat. Not overly fond of the trademark scar slashed across the bridge of his nose, Seifer didn't feel particularly inclined to test her patience. The incident with Squall was one he found himself looking back on more and more often. He was the one who'd gotten in trouble for injuring his partner, while everyone seemed to forget that the poor, defenseless Squall had drawn just as much blood that morning. Seifer was back in class, the flow of blood hardly staunched from his face, only to have Quistis Trepe yell at him for his infraction. 

In a nutshell, that was the story of Seifer's life. An orphan as long as he could remember, even his parents had cast the shadow of doubt upon his character. It was little surprise to him that he'd grown into the monster so many people had believed him to be. There was a secret little part of him which liked to believe, from time to time, that he wasn't so bad as everyone made him out to be. Then the blood thirst would overwhelm him, and he would be forced to confront his own devilish soul. 

"Back to Garden?" he asked, looking across the room where his gunblade was resting against the cool wooden floor. A tawny shroud covered it, but he could practically taste the metal and feel the weight of it in his bound hands. He wondered dismally if Quistis had any idea what seeing Hyperion so close at hand was doing to him. On the down side of his musing, he questioned whether or not she cared. 

"Those would be my orders," she shrugged. 

"Do you get a piece of the bounty?" 

"I suppose I would be entitled to at least a share," she replied, not even turning to look at him as she continued to shove personal items into her pack. She had done him the favor of already packing his small number of worldly possessions. For some reason, it made Seifer embarrassed to think that she'd packed up his socks and underwear. Even though he admittedly would have flashed them to her if he thought it would unnerve her, it seemed like a vast invasion of his privacy for her to see them without his offering. Chewing bitterly at his bottom lip he tried to push the thought out of his mind. 

"Miss Trepe?" Treban's face peeked into the room, his dark eyes resting momentarily on the rounded curve of Quistis' behind before she righted her stance to face him. 

"Yes?" 

"About your payment for the room..." He stepped full into the doorway, scratching his protruding belly. He was a disgusting, backward specimen of a man. Fully the type to own a dirty little tavern, he often smelled strong of the grain he made his select choice of drink out of, and he even more often smelled of the drink itself. Seifer, contrary to the opinion of many, wasn't a big drinker. Truth be told, he couldn't afford to be. Time to time he would ease his body from the Trabian cold, but becoming mentally incapacitated was akin to a death wish. 

"Right, the room," Quistis brushed her hands along her heavily knit sweater. "When I get to the next town and can receive my back pay from Garden, I will be sure to have a share of it forwarded to you." 

"Well, that wasn't quite what I wanted to discuss," he admitted. 

"What then?" Quistis asked, her stance becoming noticeably more ridged from Seifer's point of view. He could hardly hide his smile. Quistis had gained some spunk since he'd last seen her, accumulated along with all the other changes to her persona. All things considered, she was really rather...likable. 

"Your room is on the house," he cracked a little smile, the effort crinkling the skin around his eyes. 

"How very kind of you," Quistis relaxed. Feeling like a fly on the wall, Seifer shifted his weight uncomfortably and couldn't help offering a comment of his own. 

"Let me guess," he grinned, "You have another form of payment in mind?" 

The look Treban sent Seifer's way was nothing short of flaming with embarrassment and anger. 

"Actually," spittle flew out of Treban's mouth as he spoke, "I was going to propose getting a share of the reward for your sorry hide." 

"You want the bounty?" Quistis sounded genuinely surprised. 

"Well, I was instrumental in his capture," Treban pointed out. Seifer turned his gaze to Quistis, wondering if she would fall for the man's trick. He'd been about as instrumental as a broken piano. As far as Seifer was concerned, his capture had been due partly to his own stupidity and partly to Quistis' perseverance. Somehow, it was easier for him to admit defeat to Quistis than to some Trabian bumpkin. 

"I'll be sure to make that suggestion to the Garden staff," she smiled. Quistis was remarkably feminine in every way, but there was an intimidating air to her that pushed Treban back out the door without another word. She had hardened since her years as an instructor. Of course, years had passed since then and Quistis had become a woman in her own right. Seifer couldn't even begin to guess what all had transpired in the time he'd been away to forge her new, but eerily familiar, persona. 

The snow had stopped melting, but it had gotten heavy enough for Treban, Slim, and Cam to finally succeed in their digging project. Early in the morning they'd reached fresh air and raised a cheer that woke both himself and Quistis. He'd been banished back to the floor indefinitely as Quistis once again began to question her control over him. 

The air in her little room was practically shuddering with leashed energy. They'd been trapped a little to long for either of their tastes, and even knowing what it meant for him, Seifer was relieved to be leaving. Naturally, he had not yet relinquished himself to the mercy of the Garden staff. He'd been able to gather enough winter survival information from Treban to ensure give himself a fighting chance out in the cold. If Quistis lost him, or if he were able to escape from her, she'd have little hope of finding him again. Seifer didn't have to be bitten twice before he learned his lesson. 

Quistis leaned down, pushing him slightly forward with one hand and pulled at the knot between his own. He hadn't missed being tied up at all, and he had to fight the part of him that wanted to knock her down right there and run for the hills. It was a sour note to his stomach that Quistis was the one to lead him into death, perhaps the one person in the world he hadn't prepared himself for. She was the sensitive one, the one who was drawn into herself and looking for acceptance from others. Quistis was not brutal, and he couldn't think of any particular reason she would despise him enough to track him down. 

"Get ready to go," she commanded him. 

"Yes, Sir." He couldn't help the sneer. 

All of his amassed outdoor gear was laying in a pile. The dark, thick coat slid easily over his shoulders. It was even sort of welcoming, as the time he'd spent in it had been filled with a sense of liberation if not tension. The smell of it brought his senses back to the vast, frozen tundra and an aching hunger in his belly. Nothing in his life had ever been easy for him. There was a point when he'd completely stopped trying, or had started to do what others had expected of him...fail. With time and solitude, he'd been able to discover a lot about himself. 

Quistis watched him as he buttoned up the coat and complimented it with a pair of matching mittens. Their coats were collectively shedding hair everywhere, but neither of them felt inclined to clean up the mess. So, when he pulled the hood over his head they simply gathered up their things and walked down the old wooden stairs in silence. He didn't doubt that Quistis would bind his hands again before she allowed him out the door. His gunblade was tucked against her back, the handle just protruding behind her head. It was a perilous place for her to put it, but even as he walked down the stairs he couldn't muster the guts to yank it out and drive it through her back. 

Cursing silently to himself, wondering where his newfound weakness was coming from, he narrowed his eyes. He would get away from her, that wasn't in question, but he knew he'd have to leave her alive in the process. Quistis was as close as he had to family, in a sick sense of the word. 

"Treban, it was nice meeting you," Quistis sent the big man a beaming smile. The other two men had already departed, neither of them pausing on their way out to say goodbye to either Quistis or Seifer. "I'll be sure to get some form of payment to you." 

"Oh..." he looked over at Seifer for a moment, "don't worry about it. If I get something, great...and if I don't, no big deal." 

"Do you have a map?" she asked, a hopeful look glittering through her eyes. "Mine's not very detailed." 

"Nope, afraid not," Treban leaned back against the bar, showing off his superior length to Quistis. Seifer couldn't help but roll his eyes far back in his head. The man never tired of trying to get a little action out of the little instructor, no matter how many times she shot him down. It was almost as bad as the stupid romance novel he'd been reading (which, incidentally, he was almost done with). 

"Oh, well...I'm sure I can get by with the one I have," she shrugged. "Got me here." Even as she spoke, she was turning around to tie Seifer's hands together. 

"Good luck," Treban smiled warmly. 

She was going to need it. 


	11. Fortitude

A/N: Gosh!! I didn't realize how many people were hanging around waiting for me to update this fic! You guys are great...very devoted :-P I'm lucky to have y'all.

Chapter 11: Fortitude

The blizzard had changed the entire appearance of the landscape. When Quistis had walked through on her way to the tavern, the sun had been setting and splashing orange and red across the hard, crusted snow. Presently, layer upon layer had been added to that appearance and the world had taken on a completely different tone. It was suddenly much more forbidding, and the task of traversing it seemed all the more daunting. Sheer determination was all that kept Quistis from turning tail and running back to the relative safety of the tavern. 

Seifer came up beside her, stepping high with his snowshoes. He had the stride to easily outpace her in the cumbersome, but essential, devices. He let out a long breath, which promptly froze in front of his face.

"Why are we stopping?" he demanded. 

"Wouldn't think you'd be in such a hurry," she pointed out.

"I'm freezing to death just standing here," he barked. There was a little vein in his neck that jumped out whenever he forced words out in such a way, and even though his neck was completely covered, she could practically see the little twitch in her mind. 

Shrugging off the feeling that she'd been thinking about Seifer too often, Quistis trailed her gaze over the tops of the mountains, tracing their shape against the sky. They were the one feature of the land that hadn't been completely reshaped by the snow, and she was being forced to rely on their relative appearance and the position of the sun (along with a scratched up little compass which was proving to be less help) to find her way around. All of the most used mountain passes were marked in red ink on her map, a few of them even labeled with names she been able to wring from the locals. Early on in her trip through Trabia, she'd come to realize that making an attempt to put a name with a place was fruitless and even frustrating. Everyone seemed to have made up their own names without considering even for a second what anyone else might call it. For a foreigner like Quistis, the whole of it was more confusing than helpful. 

"Hold up," she gave Seifer's leash a tug as he started to walk ahead of her. 

"What?" he scrunched up his nose, irritated at not being able to keep his own pace. 

"I want to look at the map," she explained, reaching down the top her coat with one mittened hand. The wind, by some miracle, wasn't blowing and she reluctantly pulled off her mitten with her teeth to unfold the map. Fur came off on her tongue, and even as she cringed with the unpleasantry, she tried to focus on the task at hand. 

"Hyne, Quistis..." Seifer reached forward with his bound hands to pull the mitten from her mouth. "How did you make it out here on your own?" 

"Didn't have to baby-sit then," she reminded him. She pushed her sunglasses up her nose as she bent over to spread the map out against her legs. She would have never believed that sunglasses were an important feature to traveling across snow, but the first day she'd spent on an ice field with the sun blaring down from the sky had thoroughly convinced her to invest in a pair. SeeD would cringe when they got her expense report, the entire trip being filled with train tickets and a number of local purchases that included her current artic apparel. 

"Do you even know where we are?" Seifer demanded, tilting his head slightly to one side. 

"Of course I do," Quistis snapped, feeling insulted by his obvious lack of confidence in her abilities. She'd accomplished things no one else had, being one of the youngest SeeDs ever to become an instructor not among the least of them. Seifer, on the other hand, was a spectacular failure. She couldn't even remember all the time's he'd failed his SeeD exam, and at the peak of his studies he'd betrayed those of his own to side with evil. If anyone deserved doubt and criticism, it wasn't Quistis. 

His features taking on the same cold sheen as the countryside, he turned his face from her as if he could somehow read her thoughts. Shaking her head to rid herself of the slight amount of pity and remorse that started to rise up in the depths of her stomach. It was beyond her why she was inclined to feel anything toward Seifer other than a general sort of dislike. She'd hunted him for long enough that he'd become almost a permanent fixture in her mind, and she somehow felt as if she knew him in and out. Their hunter and prey relationship had somehow fostered a certain sense of familiarity. 

Tracing her finger along the map, she picked out a low pass that she figured wouldn't have been made completely impassable by the snow. Perhaps the most desirable feature of that specific route was that it came out into a little valley in which a sizable town was located. Hopefully she'd be able to gain transport from there into Esthar or, at least, to the coast so that she could sail back to Balamb. The shorter her trip back with Seifer had to be, the better. 

"Okay...let's get going," she announced, shoving the map back into her coat and putting her mittens back on. Seifer had dropped her mitten into the snow after taking it from her, and it was finely coated with a white powder that was difficult to remove. Slapping it quickly against her thigh a few times, she sent a shower of flakes back to the ground. Seifer received a heated look from her before they started walking again. 

Quistis was cold...freezing actually. She had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from clacking together. Seifer, however, seemed to be fine. With every other step he'd let out a puff of air and there seemed to be a healthy blush to his skin that completely belied his nearly emaciated form. He'd lost all unnecessary fat, and his muscles had taken on lean and thready appearances. If anything, she supposed he was about as healthy as he'd ever been. He'd only grown more hard. 

"Slow down," she gave his leash a tug, nearly pulling him off balance. 

"Damn it," he struggled for a few moments to regain his balance without the aid of his arms and hands. When he finally came back to equilibrium on his feet, he turned heated green eyes on his captor. 

"What?" she feigned innocence. 

"What the hell was that for?" he demanded. 

"You're getting ahead of me," she shrugged, struggling to get in front of him with the big snow shoes on. Her knees hurt from bowing her legs in order to keep up the rigorous pace Seifer was setting. The slight aching was beginning to wear at her already thin resolve. 

"Well, Hyne forbid!" he rolled his eyes. "If you didn't walk like a damn sloth in those things, we might get somewhere before night fall." 

"I wouldn't be so worried about timing if I were you," Quistis shot back. 

"I'd rather not die out here," he narrowed his eyes. As he grew more tense, she could see his hands straining at their bindings, and his shoulders bunched with the effort. 

"You're not worth nearly as much dead," Quistis replied, knowing all the while it was a hit below the belt. He spun around faster than she honestly thought was possible in a pair of show shoes and started walking at a quick clip, dragging Quistis along behind him. 

"Really? That's interesting to hear, Quisty," he ground out, picking up his pace even more. The break neck speed he had going allowed Quistis to finally understand how he'd been able to stay ahead of her for so long. He traveled quick, and he didn't seem to get tired while doing so. 

"Seifer! Stop!" She had the rope tied around her waist so he wouldn't be able to get away from her. But now, as he raced in front of her, she wasn't able to keep up. 

"Give me on reason why I should," he grunted. 

"I can't keep up..." she panted. She stumbled, one of her shoes catching the other, and as the ground lurched sickly up at her she had the sharp mental image of her ankles twisting violently. Seifer could leave her for dead if she couldn't walk. He'd never agree to carry her to safety. "Seifer!" Her own voice was lined with a panic she didn't even realize she was feeling. 

"How's it feel?" he asked. "You like not being in control? Like knowing I can decide whether you live or die?" He snarled and pulled on his end of the rope with remarkable strength. Quistis twisted her body to one side, letting it pull her onto her side in the snow rather than over the front of her snow shoes. Her lungs were gasping for the frozen air, which stung and tingled inside of her. Small tears were squeezing from between her eyes in response to the sudden violence Seifer had unleashed upon her. She was in over her head. She was out in the middle of nowhere with a murderer, and she had virtually no control over him. 

"Stop crying," he demanded as he walked back over to her. 

Quistis reached instinctively for her whip and was about to unleash all the power she could muster upon him before he somehow managed to pin her arm with his knee. There was a sheen of fear to his own eyes, and as he sat on top of her and they stared each other down, Quistis became confused as to who was in control of the situation. 

Her hood had slipped off, and snow was melting against the back of her head, vastly increasing the rate of her chattering. The longer they sat in the snow, an amount of time which Quistis had already lost complete track of, she grew colder. 

Seifer was breathing hard, the beard he was growing doing nothing to hide the tension in his jaw. He looked down at her for a long while, his knee cutting of bits of circulation throughout her arm. Finally, when the wildness leaked back out of his gaze and he seemed to gain back his head, Quistis was able to clear away the cob webs from her own mind and twisted underneath him. 

"Seifer...get off of me..." she half demanded, half pleaded. 

He gave her one last hard look, reminding her that (contrary to whatever she'd thought before) she was not in control of the situation. That was an immensely frightening idea, and when she rolled over onto her knees to try and get up she tried to hide her face from him so he wouldn't see her fear. 

_What have I gotten myself into? _

More than at any other point in her journey, she found herself questioning why she'd taken the assignment in the first place. She'd wanted to get away from Garden, and the place she'd so wanted to escape was currently the only place in the world she wanted to be. Homesick to her bones, she fought within herself to find the courage to keep going. It had never been difficult for her to dig up bravery within herself before, she was trained as a mercenary and her own life was often secondary to her goal. Whether she'd gotten soft or was simply out of touch with her training from being gone so long, she wasn't sure. However, the prospect of meeting her end at the hands of Seifer made her blood run cold. 

Perhaps, she figured, it was Seifer that made her situation so frightening. With all that he'd done, she never really figured that he would kill her. She didn't fully trust him not to, but at the same time she couldn't see him murdering her in cold blood. 

He waited, panting, as she pushed herself up out of the snow and righted all of her clothing. He was a loose cannon, more so than she'd ever really allowed herself to believe. It was easier to fight him with the aid of companions, but she was alone with him and had no one to help her. 

"Let's keep going toward the pass," he suggested, his voice thick. 

"Sure," Quistis replied, looking down at his bound hands to be sure he hadn't somehow been able to get loose. The restraints eased some of her tension, but as they began walking again (she with a little stiff pain) she was still struggling with the effort of finding the fortitude demanded of her. 

_Hyne, what I wouldn't give to be home..._


	12. The Darkness Inside

A/N: I know I have been neglecting this poor fic, but school is almost out and I'm going to have a lot of spare time coming up in about a week. My plan is to get this completed ASAP so that I can move on to some other fics that I have waiting in the wings. Hopefully things will work out that way. 

Chapter 12: The Darkness Inside

Seifer wasn't sure what had possessed him. He'd reached a point where he simply couldn't restrain himself any longer. He knew that he'd hurt Quistis, in more ways than one. The slight limp to her gait was evidence that he'd strained her physically, but he could tell that she was scared. She wasn't as strong as she'd once been, and she certainly had no one to help her out if she found herself in a tight spot.

He liked to think that he had more self control than that. He'd grown up since the ordeal with the sorceress, and he wasn't quite so quick to anger anymore. But, for some reason, having Quistis treat him like a common criminal had made something deep inside of him snap.

The world was just starting to grow dark, and the temperature was dropping accordingly. The sky was clear, and Seifer knew that the night was going to be cold. He wasn't at all confident that Quistis was prepared for how low the temperatures would drop come nightfall. 

"We should find a place to stop soon," he announced, meaning to offer it as a piece of advice. Regardless of how he felt about Quistis, it was in his best interest to arrange for his own safety. If she wasn't thinking ahead for the both of them, then he figured he would. She shrugged off his suggestion, ignoring him as she continued to trudge through the snow. 

Seifer frowned, fighting back bits and pieces of anger that immediately rose to the surface. His feelings toward Quistis weren't so much rooted in hatred. The truth was, he sort of liked the little blonde up ahead of him. He'd never really disliked her. The simple fact that she'd been the shadow haunting his night and that she was taking him back (probably to face execution) made it difficult for him to display any of his kind feelings toward her. If anything, he'd thought Quistis would feel more sympathetic toward him than anyone. 

"So how much are you gonna be getting for my head?" he asked, tossing out the comment simply to ruffle her feathers. 

"Better be quite a bit for all the trouble I've gone through to get you," she snorted. 

She had some spunk to her when she wanted to. Seifer tried hard to hide the smile that snuck up on his mouth. Quistis was smart, and she was tough. Most of the time he felt otherwise on the issue of her strength, but he had to admit that it took guts to leave home and trek out across a god-forsaken foreign land. She didn't know the first thing about surviving in the cold, but she was learning. And, despite the bitter look across her face, she hadn't voiced a single complaint. 

"That can't be the only reason you're out here," he persisted. 

"There's a lot of reasons I'm out here, Seifer." 

"Feel like sharing any of them?" 

"Not particularly." 

She obviously didn't feel like chatting. Seifer shifted his gaze downward, watching the snow move steadily as they walked onward. Quistis would stumble from time to time, throwing snow up behind her. Either she was hurt, or she was tired...quite possibly both. Seifer wished she would just swallow her pride and find a place to camp for the night. 

"This is a nice little area," he announced, looking around them at the mountains on either side. He was hoping to open the way for her to agree and suggest setting up camp on her own. 

"Yep," she agreed, nodding her head. They walked on, Quistis stubbornly ignoring him to the best of her ability. He wondered if she was mad at him, he couldn't blame her if she was. He _had_ attacked her. Although, he hadn't really meant to hurt her...he'd just been pushed to the edge and wanted her to stop and listen to him. 

"Look, are we going to stop or not?" he finally demanded. "It's going to freeze damn hard when the sun goes down, and I'd rather be sitting by a fire." 

"I don't want to spend any more time out here with you than I have to," she barked. Her azure eyes flashed with irritation, solidifying Seifer's theory that she was pissed at him. 

"Same to you," he retorted childishly. "But I'd rather not freeze to death with you." 

"Shut up, Seifer," she growled. 

"Fine," he rolled his eyes. She was making a mistake, and if she wasn't woman enough to admit it, than she would just have to find out for herself. 

They walked on for another half an hour before the air started to sting the inside of Seifer's lungs. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and he knew Quistis wasn't going to be able to keep going much longer. She was used to the balmy seaside weather, and the Trabian winter was a harsh thing for anyone to travel though. Quistis' cold weather endurance was lower than Seifer's, and as he started to flounder he knew that she had to be struggling much more than she indicated. 

Fifteen more minutes went by. They were agonizing for the both of them, but Quistis stubbornly refused to give in. He had to admit that she was tougher than he'd anticipated. She kept walking on even as he was struggling with the urge to stop. 

In the end, the weather won out and Quistis was forced to stop. Seifer's lungs were aching and the muscles in his legs were numb. Quistis didn't quite have the dexterity to start a fire as she pulled off her gloves. Her hands were shaking wildly, and a frustrated look crossed her face as she tried to steady them. The same thing had happened to Seifer on his first night through Trabia. It was a frightening thing to be betrayed by his own body, and for long moments he'd believed that he was going to freeze and die. The most depressing facet of that thought was simply that nobody would care. Sure, someone along the line would find his icy corpse and probably get a substantial reward for retuning it to those who wanted to see him dead. 

Being at the top of Garden's most wanted list wasn't something he liked to think of as a life accomplishment. 

"Warm up your hands, then try again," Seifer told her, his teeth chattering. 

"And how to you propose I do that?" she asked angrily. 

"Pull your arms inside your coat and tuck them under your arms." That was the way he'd been able to save himself. In reality, he supposed that his situation hadn't been a life or death but, but at the time it certainly had seemed so. Much like Quistis, he was cold and frightened and hadn't been thinking as clearly as he could have been. The answer was obvious: steady the hands, build the fire, thaw out. It was so simple that it was almost instinctual. 

He watched, sitting in the snow, with mild interest as Quistis' arms disappeared inside of her coat. She was sitting next to him, her knees tucked up to her chest. Resting her chin on the top of her knees, she watched him. Her teeth were chattering as well, and he wondered if she was regretting not listening to him from the start. Whether or not her intentions were hateful, he didn't want her to die. She obviously hadn't realized that, and as long as she hadn't Seifer figured he would use the fact to his advantage. Of course, she didn't scare quite as easily as the average person on the street. 

"Getting better?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. 

"Yeah..." she nodded, rocking back and forth slowly. After a few moments of silence her arms came back through the sleeves of her coat and she again attempted to start a fire. This time she was much more successful, and in minutes she had a healthy, roaring flame. 

They both sat at in unsafe proximity to the fire, their sides pressed firmly together. Seifer's hands were still bound, but in front of him so that he could still warm himself adequately. As their bodies thawed, the tension gradually returned. Quistis, however, seemed to be in a slightly better mood. 

"What was that whole thing about earlier today?" she asked. 

"What thing?" Seifer knew what she was talking about, but he preferred to play stupid. 

"When you pulled me down," she replied, seeing right through his bluff. 

"Oh...that thing..." he hesitated. "I'm not really sure." 

"What do you mean you're not sure?" The firelight was playing nicely off of her features. Seifer, in his fickle little way, thought for a moment that she looked absolutely beautiful. Why his thoughts were always so contradictory was a mystery to him, one he would certainly have liked to solve. 

"Well..." he had to advert his gaze to the fire. The way she looked in that moment made it hard for him to explore the dark side that he harbored. "I guess I got tired of you treating me like a criminal." 

"You are a criminal," she reminded him. 

"No I'm not! Dammit!" He yelled. "Because I ended up fighting on the loosing side of a war, I'm a criminal?" 

"No," she shook her head. "Because of what you did during the war." 

"I was eighteen," he reminded her. 

"And you're saying that you've grown up since then?" she asked disbelievingly. 

"You don't have a clue what I've been through," he replied, shaking his head. He did know that he had his demons to contend with, but he wasn't as sadistic and evil as most people thought of him. He and Squall had been rivals, even friendly rivals at times, they had never been arch enemies. The only time things had become that bloody and twisted were in the very depths of the war when he'd been under quite heavy outside influence anyway. He teased, and he pushed, but he wasn't evil. Maybe he did need to serve some punishment for the things he had done, but he couldn't help but feel that the things some people discussed (execution for one) were over the top for his crimes. 

"Maybe not," she shrugged. "But it's not right for anyone to do some of the things you did." 

"Would you have done them to protect the people you loved?" he asked. "You would have killed me to save Squall...or even Selphie or Zell." 

"I don't know that I would have _killed_ you," she admitted. 

"Really?" He didn't believe that for a moment. She was a mercenary, she was trained to kill and do so without mercy for the enemy. She got the job done no matter what it took, even if that meant the loss of her own life. It was the SeeD way. Which was more ruthless then? The very Garden that she was working for or himself? 

"Despite what you believe, I don't have any desire to see you dead, Seifer," she shook her head. 

That was an interesting development. She didn't want to see him dead, yet she was risking her own life to drag him halfway across the room to face the music. If that didn't mean death, what did it mean? True enough, he could be incarcerated. The thought of that was generally displeasing to him. All things considered, he supposed that he would rather die. 

"Then what are you after?" he asked. 

She stared at him for a few moments. 

"Answers," she finally replied vaguely. 

Seifer frowned and turned his attention back to the fire. He didn't like to think of what questions she had to ask him. They would all drudge up bad memories that he'd worked for the past few years to forget. She wanted to shine a light into the dark part of his soul, to find out what made him tick and why he'd acted the way he had. She wanted answers he didn't have, and ones that he didn't want to pursue. Most especially, he wasn't interested to finding out why Quistis had always been one of two people in his life that he genuinely cared about. 


	13. Snowfall in the Morning

A/N: I'm on a roll this weekend! Two new chapters in as many days...sheesh.

Chapter 13: Snowfall in the Morning

Quistis woke the next morning tucked up tightly next to Seifer. Some snow had fallen around them, building up a little wall around their bodies and a sheer blanket across them. He was still asleep, his breathing slow and even. In sleep he looked serene. A shadow of a beard had grown across his jaw line, stubbly and blonde. His hair was longer than it had been back in his days at Garden. The same few pieces still hung over his forehead into his eyes, but it had gained length and curled about his collar in the back.

She sat and watched him sleep for some time, warm and comfortable next to him. His bound hands were tucked up in between them and he was slowly breathing across them. She wasn't sure how he could stand to have his snowlion mittens so close to his face. Her own nose was tingling from the scent of the blue and white fur.

Seifer had transformed into a different person. Years on the run had changed him. Even though he had lost it and attacked her, he'd shown remarkable restraint in not doing so before hand. He had, after all, sat on her floor with his hands tied for days without complaint. That would have never happened with the Seifer of old. Something had changed him more than physically. Smiling a little to herself, she realized that he had finally grown up.

Back at Garden, he'd been only eighteen. He was still immature. He teased, he goofed off in class, he was arrogant and cocky about his own abilities. Everyone felt for the most part that if Seifer could restrain himself long enough to get something done that he would make an excellent SeeD. He was punished, really, for thinking too far ahead and taking control of situations that were to be left to his superiors. Back in Dollet, Seifer should have been a hero. He wasn't mostly because he hadn't the patience to see the situation on the radio tower and had run off in search of other enemies.

Currently, he'd been not only patient with his situation but also patient with her. He'd been right the night before when he'd told her to stop. Chagrined, she realized that she'd acted more in character for him that he had. She'd been stubborn and refused see the logic of his suggestion until it had nearly gotten the both of them killed.

Snow was falling lightly yet, a few big flakes sticking to the outside of her hood. She was hoping that it was just an easy, early morning thing that would pass as soon as the day started to warm. If, that is, the day did warm. There was really no anticipating what the weather might do from one instant to the next. As far as she knew, there could be another blizzard on the other side of the mountains. Neither of them would know until it crossed over the peaks and came barreling down at them.

"Seifer," she nudged him lightly.

"Mmm..." His eyes came open slowly, dark green and hazy with sleep. His gaze locked for a few moments on her, and what she thought for a moment was a smile tugged at his lips.

"We're going to have to get moving," she told him.

"Why?" He snuggled down further into the snow and slightly closer to her, closing his eyes again.

"It's snowing," she replied. "I want to get out of here in case the weather gets worse."

Seifer groaned, rolling over a little to look up at the whitewashed sky.

"Damn," he licked his lips, closing his eyes tightly once again. "Okay."

Neither of them moved, both very comfortable where they were. Quistis wasn't the kind of person to wake up and get up right away in the morning. She liked to lay in bed for a while and let herself slowly come out of sleep. Alarm clocks were her worst enemy. After the long trek they had made the day before, it was ten times as hard to convince herself that they had to peel themselves off of the ground. She was sore from walking and her ankle slightly bruised from when Seifer had pulled her over her snowshoes.

"You first," Seifer chuckled.

"Fine." With a groan of misery, she slowly pushed herself up off the ground. The morning wasn't as cold as the night had been, but it definitely held a bite. Frowning, she tucked her hood closer about her face. Hair was falling out of her loosely bound ponytail about her face, and she shoved it back into the confines of her hood as best as she could with her mittens on.

"Ugh...Hyne," Seifer sat up beside her, although with slightly more effort because his hands were still tied.

"How are you doing?" she asked, motioning to the biding. "I mean...it's not biting into your wrists or anything, is it?" Her sudden concern, she assured herself, sprung from the fact that he had helped her the night before. The least she could do was repay him.

"Hadn't really thought about it," he admitted, his pain having been eased by the cold much of the day before.

Quistis leaned toward him, pushing his mitten down a bit so that she could see his wrist. Under the rope there was a dotted line of red sores. They immediately assailed Quistis with guilt. The underside of the rope was pink, as was the skin in between the spots rubbed raw.

"Seifer..." she blinked slowly. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he tilted his head.

"For not thinking earlier that it could be hurting you," she replied.

"You're doing your job," he shrugged.

"Right..." She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and then considered her options. She could loosen the ropes and hope they he didn't particularly feel the need to take them off. She could leave them as they were and let them further eat through his wrists. Or, she could take them off all together and hope that he wouldn't run away. The last option, obviously, wasn't feasible. She also couldn't, in good conscience, let them stay the way they were. That left only one other option.

She chewed steadily on her bottom lip as she worked at the knot, easing some slack into the hold it had on him. He let out a long sigh when she was finished, probably realizing for the first time the amount of discomfort the ropes had him in.

"Better?"

"Much," he smiled.

"Alright, let's get moving then." She let him sit for a few moments as she cleaned up their camp, kicking some snow over the dead fire out of habit. Collecting her pack, and securing Hyperion underneath it along her back, she reached for the lead to Seifer's binding.

The day wore on in much the same way that they previous one had. This one, however, seemed to tick by at a much slower rate. Quistis paused after what had seemed hours to glance back at their progress only to see their camp looming in the not so distant background. Snow was still falling, obscuring her vision slightly.

"This is going to be one long day," Seifer announced, reflecting her own thoughts.

Both of them were fairly used to traveling through the Trabian mountains, Seifer more so than she. Neither of them had traveled in quite so much snow before. There was always a lot of snow up above six thousand feet, and they were some distance above that. The snow pack under them was thick, but it was hard and crusted. Newly fallen snow was much more difficult to traverse in. The cumbersome snow shoes made the trip that much more difficult, as did the constant tension between them.

The longer they walked, the heavier the snow started to come down. The longer Quistis looked at the big, downy flakes, the further her stomach dropped. More snow was the last thing that they needed. It was also slightly frightening.

"Does somebody up there have something against me, or what?" she grumbled, casting a glance toward the somber sky.

"Welcome to my world," Seifer said from behind her. He was keeping close behind he, not struggling as much as she was. She knew that, really, she was only slowing him up. It was a remarkable thing that she'd been able to catch up to him at all.

"I'd rather go back to my own," she replied. "Some nice Balamb beaches, sunshine, the sea breeze..."

"Why did you leave in the first place?" he asked. He'd been asking her this question from the first moment that he learned it was she who had been pursuing him. She wasn't exactly sure if he was asking why she had wanted to come after him or asking why she would leave the life she had in Balamb.

"I needed to get away for a while," she shrugged.

"Get away from what?" he frowned. "Friends? Safety? A place to call home and people who love you?"

He had a point, one that Quistis had come to realize after she left. It was easier for her to see the good things in her life once she abandoned them. The small problems that she had didn't seem as severe any longer.

"I suppose I was tired of everyone thinking they knew everything about me," she replied. "All these misconceptions people have about me follow me around everywhere. Because I was an instructor, I don't believe in having any sort of fun. I'm prim, proper, and heartless."

She paused to look up at the mountains for a moment before going on.

"I think a lot of people think of me as untouchable," she replied. "You know...the Treppies, they followed me around and everything but none of them ever approached me. They all sat in the background. And once I wasn't an instructor, and the Treppies grew up, I still held that stereotype."

"The Treppies never approached you because they knew their lives would be in danger if they did," he snorted, sounding a little proud.

"Why is that?" she asked, surprised.

"Disciplinary Committee stayed on top of them," he shrugged.

"Really?" She stopped, turning around to look at him. "You told them to stay away from me?"

"Well...not really," he blushed a little. "We kept them under control."

Quistis was genuinely surprised. She'd not been involved in student life, and thus had little to no idea of what had gone on as far as the Disciplinary Committee was concerned. She knew that Seifer did rule with an iron fist, but it shocked her to learn that he'd used his position of power to keep a thumb on top of the Treppies. She vowed when she got back to take a look at the past records of some of the automated student message boards.

The snow was falling with more zest, and even though Seifer's little confession kept her mind buzzing for the next few hours, she couldn't help but feel concerned. She'd since completely forgotten about Seifer's loosened bindings, her entire focus concentrated on the weather and remnants of the past.

Suddenly the wind picked up, blowing shards of snow painfully into Quistis' face. She blinked hard, shaking her head to clear her vision only to realize that her sudden loss of sight was due to the large amount of loose snow caught up in the gust. Shuddering, she felt Seifer bump into the back of her.

"I think we'd better find some sort of shelter," he announced.

Deciding to take his advice this time around, Quistis nodded. The only problem lay in the fact that she couldn't see and had no other way of finding a safe place to ride out the oncoming storm. They were making their way up a pass, one she hoped was the final one to their destination. On either side of them was mountain, although they were hugging the side of one.

They kept walking for some distance through the blowing snow, neither sure enough of the land to suggest a place to stop. So, onward they walked into the blinding snow. Quistis shivered with the cold and fear. Whether he realized it or not, their survival depended wholly upon Seifer, because she didn't have the first clue what to do.


	14. Surviving the Night

A/N: Gosh, another update! We must all be dreaming. On top of that, I started on a new Quistis/Seifer piece I'm _very _excited about! (I refuse to pick sides on the Seiftis/Quifer issue.) Might be a while in coming for ya all, I want it to be very well thought out and complete.

Chapter 14: Surviving the Night

The light morning snowstorm had turned into a blizzard before Seifer and Quistis were forced to stop. Neither of them could see further than five feet in front of them, and an indention in the side of the mountain they had been working across suddenly seemed like their best bet to survive the night. Both of them were cold, shivering uncontrollably as the storm raged around them.

Seifer watched Quistis stumble toward the spot with a frown etched across his features. She wasn't doing well. She was too cold, too unused to weather and terrain of the region. He could tell that she had been pushed to her limit and had gone on past it. She was worn thin, and he wasn't at all positive that she would make it through the storm. Worry crumbled all of his good sense, and turning slightly so that she couldn't see him, he slipped the ropes off of his hands. He'd been able to do so all day long, but for some strange reason he had chosen not to. Presently, he was more help to her fully able.

She flopped into a sitting position against the rock. He'd picked out the spot because the rock was worn enough that there was an overhang he could stake a lean-to against. In the very least, it would keep away some of the wind. Quistis didn't say anything to him when she noticed that his hands were free. After all, where did he have to go? They were as trapped now as they had been back in the tavern. If anything, there were less options for him now. She didn't seem particularly worried that he would get away. He hoped that she wasn't getting hypothermic.

"Quistis...I need Hyperion," he squatted down in front of her, easing he forward just enough to pull his gunblade from it's snug place against her back.

"Seifer..." her teeth chattered, interrupting whatever she'd been about to say.

"Don't worry, Quisty," he shook his head, then retrieved his trench coat from her pack. "Lay down, tuck yourself under the overhang."

Amazingly, she did as she was told. Even more amazing was the fact that both of them fit quite well into the little nook. It was shallow and higher than Seifer would have liked, but he figured he would take what he could get. He hastily built the little lean-to using his gunblade and trench coat, effectively blocking out a good amount of wind and snowfall from their shelter.

He laid beside Quistis, but she had her eyes closed and buried herself within her coat so only the crown of her head was peaking out.

"Quistis," he nudged her. "Quistis, look at me."

"Hmmm?" her face slowly peeked out of her coat.

"Unzip your coat," he told her.

"What?" For the first time she seemed shocked.

"Just do it," he shook his head, already unzipping his own.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously, bringing her mittened hands up in front of her chest.

"Dammit, Quistis," he reached for her zipper to do it himself. "Hurry up, I'm freezing." She didn't seem to understand what he was about, but she let him unzip her coat anyway. That finally settled, Seifer opened both of their coats and pulled them bodily together. Wrapping the coats back around the both of them, and then his arms around her small body, he relaxed once again.

"Oh..." she cuddled against him, realizing that he meant to utilize body heat. Quistis wasn't helping to warm him up yet, but she was relaxing more and more by the second. That covered, he then turned his attention to appendages. They both had on good boots, and as far as he could tell his feet weren't wet yet. Quistis' boots were even better than his (she was somewhat of a boot connoisseur) and he was relatively confident that she wasn't going to loose any toes from the experience. If the storm went on past the next morning, he figured he would start to worry about their feet.

"Feeling any better?" he asked, his chin on top of her head.

"Yeah," she murmured against him.

One position he never dreamed that he would find himself in was holding Quistis Trepe tightly to himself. The whole series of events that had led up to their current predicament would have been impossible to forecast. There was a sort of sick pleasure that he got from the fact that she was depending upon him. Her life was literally in his hands. He had the choice of whether to save her or not, whether to save himself of not. Not even thinking about it, he'd already made his decision.

Outside of their shelter the blizzard was picking up in intensity. They were fairly high up on the mountain, and he was hoping that the snow wouldn't bury them. From the sound of it though, there wasn't much hope of any snow accumulation. The wind was howling, flapping his coat and threatening to pull Hyperion from it's seat. He'd driven it slightly into the rock to give it that extra hold, still, he knew that both the gunblade and the coat would have to be replacing following this particular endeavor. The gunblade and a few other anchors he'd decided to use were already tearing the coat to shreds.

"Seifer?" Quistis moved her head under his chin.

"What?"

"Thank you." She settled back against him again, her body warming slowly.

"No problem," he smiled a little.

Earlier, when they had discussed the Treppies, he'd been unwilling to admit that he'd used his power to strike fear in every Treppie heart. Quistis didn't know the half of it. He'd heavily discouraged public displays of affection toward the dear instructor, which included speaking about her charms. Not everyone knew that he was the face behind the force keeping them down. At the time, he hadn't even fully understood why he'd been doing it. All he really knew was that listening to them spout about how beautiful she was made him feel sick and angry.

Presently, as he held her, he was coming to an understanding with his reasons. Maybe, just _maybe_, he liked her. Or, in the very least, wanted to protect her. He was certainly doing all of that on their way out of Timber.

"Keep talking to me," he instructed her.

"Hmm? About what?" she asked.

"Anything, just keep talking." There was the very real fear that Quistis would become delirious and hypothermic. He wanted to keep her awake and somewhat lucid as long as he could. Also, the sound of her voice was oddly soothing to his own nerves.

"I don't have anything to say," she announced after a short pause.

"Well..." he searched his mind. "Tell me a story, recite a poem, anything. Tell me about what happened in Garden after Ultimecia."

"Squall and Rinoa got all lovey-dovey," she replied a little bitterly. "Selphie and Irvine have lasted a surprisingly long amount of time. I think that he genuinely likes her. He get's a bad reputation because he's suave, I don't think he realizes that he's flirting half of the time. But, you know, I don't really think he's ever cheated on her in all this time."

"What about Squall and Rinoa?" he asked.

"Oh, Hyne," she rolled her eyes. "Those two make me sick sometimes. Rinoa's got Squall whipped, he does anything and everything that she asks. Luckily, she's grown up a bit since you knew her. She's not quite so childish anymore, and I think she's past that flitty stage where every guy is the one she's meant to be with. As much as I hate it, I think they'll be together for a long time."

"Really?" he was making small talk, keeping her going.

"Then there's Zell," she laughed. "That guy is oblivious. Even now."

"Chicken Wuss couldn't handle a real woman," Seifer chuckled. "What about you?"

"Mmm...me," she frowned.

He tucked her a little closer, feeling a slight draft. She didn't seem to mind, so he held her there, relishing the feel of her body against his.

"I could take the world prize on being able to pick guys who don't want me back," she replied.

"You mean Squall?" he asked.

"More than just him," she shrugged. "There was one guy, Devon. Hyne, I was so in love with him and he had no idea. He was a new SeeD, transferred to Balamb a few months after the whole Sorceress War fiasco. Tall guy, dark hair, hazel eyes...every girl in Garden wanted him. I met him at a dance, he was standing over by the punch. Anyway, I asked him to dance and we hit it off...so I thought. We were close friends for quite some time, up until he learned that I wanted to be a little bit more than that."

"He turned you down?" Seifer asked, surprised.

"Dumped like a bunch of rocks," she shook her head.

"He just jumped out of your life like that?"

"Well, it was more of a slow thing," she replied. "I started to see him less and less until finally I never saw him at all. But, I couldn't let go of him, and it was torture."

"That have anything to do with you cutting your hair?" he arched an eyebrow.

"Not really." One of her legs entangled with one of his. "I cut it because nobody was expecting it. I've always been the same old Quistis, you know. And I needed people to get over whatever they thought of me."

"Did they?"

"No...not really," she admitted. Then, pausing, asked a question he'd been slightly hoping that she wouldn't but was all the same a little flattered that he cared. "What about you?"

"In terms of relationships?" he asked.

"Well...yeah."

"Hard to have a relationship of any kind when you're a wanted man," he answered. "I've gone from town to town on the run for the past two years and haven't stopped. Quite honestly, you're the first women to come within a few feet of me for a long time now."

"That's too bad."

"Yes it is."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the both of them searching their minds for a less intrusive subject to discuss.

"How is Matron?" he finally asked.

"Oh, she's doing very well!" Quistis perked up. "She misses you. I guess you and her share a sort of bond that no one else has with her. You were with her when she was possessed. She wants to see you when we get back, she made sure that was clear to me before we left. She spends most of her time back at the old orphanage. We all helped her rebuild, and she's taking in more kids now. That woman never stops."

"She misses me?"

"Very much."

Seifer reflected over that. He'd always felt very strongly toward Edea. She was the only mother he had ever known, and all but the worst people in the world loved their mothers. She was at the top of his list of people he cared about. He would do anything for her, and being away from her was hard at times. There was a little boy inside of him that wanted to have her make everything better again.

"Seifer?" Quistis lifted her head.

"What?"

"My fingers are numb."

"Shit," the expletive slipped out before he realized that he was going to say it. "Give me your hands."

Obediently, she brought her mittened hands up for him to see. Not quite sure what to do, he stared at them for a second. There were only so many places to put them, and not all of them were ones that she would be happy with. In fact, he couldn't really think of any that wouldn't make her cringe.

He pulled off her mittens with his teeth, tossing them aside. He didn't want to let go of her even for the short moments it would take to remove the mittens.

"You're not going to like this," he announced, preparing her.

"Do what you have to," she replied.

He slid one of her cold hands up his shirt to rest against his stomach, which quivered unhappily against the cold thing resting against it. He held his breath for a moment, waiting for her hand to warm enough so that he didn't have to concentrate quite so hard on simply laying still. There was another excellent place for her other hand, but he honestly didn't think that she would go for it, so instead he slowly eased her fingers into his mouth.

If she hadn't known that she desperately needed the warmth, she probably would have pulled her hand away and given him one hell of a black eye. But, her sanity won out and she relaxed, allowing him to suck lightly on her fingers. They were cold, but started warming up quickly against his tongue.

For a moment, he was struck by the intimacy of the scene. They were snuggled together, her fingers warming in his mouth and against his stomach, her legs tangled with his. Never in his life would he have dreamed they would end up in such a position.

It was all in the means of survival, he had to keep reminding himself of that.


	15. Out of Shadows

A/N: Yet another update *pant, pant*...this is what happens when I suddenly have any amount of spare time. Except my boyfriend has been complaining that I've been neglecting him to write, lol. Poor guy. 

Chapter 15: Out of Shadows

Quistis didn't particularly want to, but she opened her eyes anyway to take a look at her surroundings. She was mildly surprised when she saw a ceiling and blankets tucked about her chin. They were soft, blue blankets. One of them was a delightful little, flower printed comforter and the other that she could see a thick vellux. It had to be a dream. The last thing that she remembered was being trapped in the mountains with Seifer, and it had been snowing violently.

Looking around the room, she tried to piece together what had happened since then and was completely unable to. The room was decidedly unfamiliar, and she was completely alone. She even checked the rest of the bed to be sure Seifer wasn't tucked in somewhere beside her.

After a few moments of serious thinking, Quistis came to the somewhat obvious realization that she and Seifer had somehow reached the city on the other side of the pass. The fact that he was mysteriously missing from the scene could mean only one thing. He had escaped.

Quistis let loose a string of swears. She'd gone through hell to get him, only to loose him again. The urge to break down into tears assailed her. Tucking her head under the covers, she groaned throatily.

"You okay?" The door creaked open and footsteps made their way into the room before it closed again.

Quistis tore the blankets from across her face and stared at the intruder, her eyes hot and confused.

"Seifer?"

He smiled down at her in that singularly irritating way that only he can. He was wearing a pair of dark colored jeans and a warm looking gray sweater. The sweater had jagged little red lines running across the chest, just chaotic enough to make it seem a little more manly. Either way, he lost no stature in her eyes by wearing the garment. He'd also shaved. The shadow of a beard that she'd become so used to was gone, and he was once again clean shaven. She was surprised how much that simple act restored his resemblance to his former self.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Civilization," he laughed, taking a seat on the side of the bed. "How're you doing? Feeling better?"

"What do you mean? How did we get here?" she shook her head, very confused. Also feeling a little irritable, she wanted answers without the usual rigmarole that accompanied them.

"You don't remember any of it?" he tilted his head slightly in one direction, then righted it.

"Last thing I remember is my fingers being...." she paused, looking at his mouth. Had he really done that? It didn't seem possible.

"Oh..._that_," he grinned. "You liked that, did you?"

She kneed him in the backside through the covers, an angry frown sliding across her face. Quistis was not in the mood to be toyed with.

"Guess I deserved that," he winced, moving to sit even with her hips.

"I'm sure you do," she nodded.

"You were delirious," he finally started into what had occurred. "It got colder and colder as the night wore on, and we were both starting to freeze. I made you learn a rhyme and repeat it over and over again, and I sat and listened to you talk. The storm broke early in the morning, but you were out of it."

Quistis cuddled further down into the covers as he spoke, not remembering any bit of it. Not even the rhyme that he claimed she'd repeated through most of the night remained intact in her memory. She was accustomed to some amount of memory loss from the guardian forces, but that always occurred slowly over time. This was an immediate loss of all information, and it was frightening. As far as she knew, anything could have happened out in the snow, and all she had to rely on was Seifer's account.

"I packed up our things," he continued on. "I carried the pack against my chest and held you on my back. We were closer than we'd thought to town, by two in the afternoon I'd come over the rise in the pass and saw the city laying down in the valley. The day had warmed considerably during that time, and you eventually stopped babbling."

"I was babbling?"

"You betcha," he smiled.

"What did I say?" she demanded.

"That's not important at the moment," he shook his head. "I walked us down to the city and got this hotel room, then called a doctor for you. You were hypothermic, but luckily you don't have any frost bite. You've already been sleeping for quite some time. It's good that you're up and lucid."

Quistis yawned and stretched, feeling very comfortable tucked in bed.

"You carried me the entire way?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She chose not to think too much into that. The fact that Seifer had saved her meant only that he had conscience, and for once he hadn't been able to ignore it. Of course, there was a lot less he could have done for her. From what she gathered from the story he told, she owed him a debt of gratitude.

"I'm going to call the doctor," he told her. "He told me to let him know when you came around."

"Alright," she nodded, rolling onto one side so that her back was to him. Since when was Seifer so caring and sensitive? It didn't seem right, and she couldn't help but feel suspicious. He could have dropped her off in town safely and escaped back into the mountains. Or, in the very likely case that he'd had enough of Trabia, he could have boarded a train for some far off destination. She highly doubted that after everything that had happened she would take off after him again. She'd nearly lost her life, and for what? Nothing. She'd only come to realize how much she missed her friends, family, and home. The very things she had been running from were the only things that she wanted to go back to. Her wild hunt for Seifer was over.

The chase, she realized, was far from over from Seifer's perspective. As soon as she was out of the race for his head someone else would be breathing down his neck. What a sad life to lead. He could go nowhere and do nothing when he wasn't in constant danger. He'd lived the past two years as she had lived the past two days. She didn't know how he handled it. In only a short amount of time it had gotten the better of her. He was much stronger than anyone gave him credit for being. That, she supposed, was an admirable thing.

There were actually plenty of admirable things about Seifer that she'd never really thought about before. He didn't hesitate to take action. Sometimes a hesitation meant life or death, and while that meant that he didn't always think his decisions through, he always made them. Not only was he decisive, but he stood by those decisions that he made and suffered the consequences with good face for the wrong ones he made. No one ever paid attention to the things he did right.

He'd been right back in Dollet. He'd been right in Timber. He'd been right in the mountains of Trabia.

"Yes, she's awake now," she heard him talking quietly into the phone across the room. "Alright...I'll see you in a few minutes...yes..thank you."

He hung up, the receiver clicking with finality. Coming back over to her, he took his previous spot on the bed. He was looking good. Better than he had back in the tavern. He looked healthier, not so thin or drawn.

"What will you be doing from here?" she asked, not at all expecting him to willingly go back into her custody.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean...where are you going to go?"

"I thought that was more up to you than it was me," he arched an eyebrow.

"You're coming back with me?" she was surprised, it seemed to be the emotion of the day.

"I'm tired of running," he announced. "It eats away at you, Quistis."

Until that moment, she'd never really considered what would be done to him once he was back at Garden. SeeD was ruthless if it was anything, and some of Seifer's crimes were fairly high ones. It was highly possible that we would be executed for them. He was somewhat of a dark spot on Garden's reputation. He was the rogue SeeD candidate who'd nearly destroyed the world. They were lucky he hadn't had more success, as was he.

She didn't want him to die, nor did she particularly want him to be put in prison any longer. There was a sort of twisted affection she felt for him and with as much as he had done for her, she wanted to give him something back.

"You don't have to, you know," she informed him. "I'm done, Seifer. I'm going home."

"So am I," he shrugged.

"I should at least be able to do _something _for you," she shook her head.

He looked down at her for a moment, slowly chewing on his much abused bottom lip. It was a habit she'd never noticed in him before, one that she had herself. It was sort of strange being able to see parts of herself reflected in him, although they had spent more time together since she had found him than she'd spent with any one person in a very long time. She shuddered to think that they were actually beginning to pick up each other's quirks. By the time they got back to Balamb they were going to be the Doublemint twins.

"One thing," he said. "I want to see Matron before Balamb."

"Alright." It was the least she could do. Taking Seifer to see his mother was a small request. Especially considering that he had saved her life when he hadn't had to, and that he was most likely being taken to die. Even the worst criminals were granted such kindnesses.

"The doctor's going to be here in bit," he announced.

Seifer's mannerisms toward her had changed so substantially since they'd been trapped in the blizzard that she wondered if something more had happened that he hadn't told her. Whatever it was, she supposed that she would remember it eventually. Seifer wasn't nice for no reason at all. Wasn't it he who had screamed and pulled her down onto the ground only a few short days ago? Wasn't he the same person who had always criticized her teaching abilities and mouthed off in class?

Yet, wasn't he the same person who had single handedly beat back the Treppies? Wasn't he the guy who had run to help Rinoa, Squall, Selphie, and Zell in Timber without a thought for his own safety? Wasn't he the person who had held her as a blizzard closed in around them, accompanying her into frightening delirium?

There were too many contradictions within him to keep track of.

A light knock sounded at the door, and he got up to let the doctor in. Quistis was only mildly surprised that the doctor was a rather young, relatively good looking, man. He had light brown hair that fell all over the place and stubble all along his jaw. He practically oozed with good nature, and his smile was broad and bright as he walked over to the bed.

"Good morning!" he took Seifer's vacated seat. "Don't suppose you remember me, do you?"

"Not really..."

"That's okay," he smiled. "You look like you're doing pretty good...all warmed up and rested. I'm going to take your vitals, and then you'll probably be fine to move along if you're feeling up to it."

He took her temperature and blood pressure, had her sit up in bed and listened to her heart and breathing in a number of different places. Seifer looked on from across the room, his green eyes dark and never leaving Quistis.

"You're tough," the doctor laughed. "Recovering pretty quickly."

"Thank you," she couldn't help but smile at him. He was so likeable.

"I recommend taking it easy here for a little while longer before moving on," he turned slightly more serious. "Don't stress yourself too much. Get something to eat and plenty of fluids, you're probably a little dehydrated. I had you on an IV for a while when you were out, but you should still try and rehydrate anyway."

"Alright."

"Keep and eye on her," her turned his attention now to Seifer. "Don't let her tell you that she's ready to go before she really is."

"Gotcha," Seifer nodded. "Thanks."

"Not a problem," he stood up, packing all of his things back up. "Stop in and say hi if you're ever back this way."

The doctor left, leaving them alone again. Seifer sent Quistis a meek smile.

"Hungry? I'll go get you something."

"Sure," she shrugged. "Just get me whatever."

"Be right back." The door closed again behind him, and Quistis slowly shook her head. Everything had changed and she didn't even know why.


	16. Deepest Secrets

A/N: This is a really introspective chapter...not very exciting. But, it will answer a question I'm sure you all have. Also, it will answer it in a way you all may have guessed from how completely sappy I am.

Chapter 16: Deepest Secrets

Seifer sat on the edge of Quistis' bed, his stomach doing barrel rolls. His entire life had shifted and abruptly changed course in a matter of seconds. Never had he considered things that were currently at the top of his mind. Of course, he'd never anticipated that a woman like Quistis Trepe would say to him what she had.

He could tell that she didn't remember saying it. She'd been delirious at the time, and it had come in a long rant concerning her life and those she knew. He couldn't remember what she'd said before hand. Her voice had kept his pace going as he'd trudged with her out of the mountains. But, when those few precious little words were uttered, he'd snapped to attention.

Still, it was difficult to believe that she'd said it.

"Mmm...these are good," she nodded lightly, shoving a forkful of fluffy pancakes into her mouth. He watched her fingers grasping the fork as it went down to the plate and came back up to her mouth again.

"Glad you like them," he shrugged, not really paying attention to what she was saying.

"The orange juice is excellent, too," she grinned. "Tastes fresh squeezed. Of course, just about anything would taste great after living on jerky for the past few days!"

He watched the movement of her lips and tongue as she spoke, mesmerized. He'd done something for her he'd never imagined he would do. Truth of the matter was, Seifer wasn't at all sure who exactly he was any longer. The years had changed him, but not so much as that one night.

Morning had come, the snow was still blowing wildly in the wind, but it had stopped its decent from the sky. Quistis had continued to mumble the rhyme he'd made up, but over the night he'd ceased listening to the words. As far as he could tell, she'd recited great novels and he would have never known. Still, the sound of her voice had kept him anchored to reality through the ordeal, and as the day slowly began to warm, he stretched.

Quistis' hand was still resting against his stomach when he went to get up, and her other hand was laying against his face, one of her fingers still slightly in his mouth. In those first few minutes, he found it hard to believe what he'd done. His chance to be free had presented itself, and he'd pushed it aside to huddle with Quistis Trepe. Standing up, he'd left her laying there. She'd huddled pathetically down into her coat as soon as the heat from his body had left her.

He'd even gone as far as to pack up his things and walk away.

He'd walked...stumbling, faltering...but he wasn't going back with her. It just wasn't going to happen.

Seifer watched her tilt a glass of orange juice to her lips, a low smile playing across his features. He hadn't been able to leave her, and as guilt violently assailed him he found himself turning back to get her. He couldn't leave her there to die, he doubted he ever would have been able to.

Still, his reasons only blossomed to their current state as she began to speak to him. Her words were garbled, an for the most part it was difficult to understand her over the roar of the wind.

As the weather had settled, she had as well.

"I miss it," she'd told him. "Those old times when it was just us...you, me, Squall, Zell, Selphie...Irvine...all of us just little kids back at that orphanage."

The simple fact that she was speaking of him, albeit somewhat indirectly, had piqued his interest and he'd listened to her, timing his steps with the natural pace of her speech.

"Things were easy then," she'd sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Just little kids, not a care in the world."

She let loose a long sigh at that point, going into a long rant about something Seifer didn't understand. He tuned her out, paying closer attention to the crunch of his steps in the snow.

Presently, he reached for her discarded fork to finish off what she hadn't eaten of her breakfast. Quistis had since cuddled back down into the covers during his musings. Her breathing was beginning to even out, and as he chewed he watched the even rise and fall of her chest.

Unable to resist, spread himself out on the bed beside her, leaning his back against the headboard as he continued to eat. The pancakes really were some of the best he'd ever had. Not as good as the ones Edea had made when they were little, but they were up there. Just enough syrup and butter, but not too much. They were still hot, steamy inside, and deliciously fluffy. His mouth was watering as he ate, and he wished he'd ordered more. Quistis' glass of orange juice was roughly half full, and without a thought he reached over to pick it up and downed the rest of it.

There was something singularly homey about orange juice and pancakes in the morning.

"Seifer?" she opened her eyes a little, looking up at him.

"What?"

There was a pause, and she sighed.

"Nothing. Never mind."

He wondered if she was starting to remember. Part of him hoped that she would, and another was praying that she wouldn't. In a way, he didn't want her to feel obligated because of something that she's said while certainly not in her right mind. It was the sort of thing a guy liked to hear knowing the lady meant what she was saying.

Seifer had never been particularly talented at figuring out what exactly Quistis was thinking. They were always at odds, and he was never sure exactly how she'd felt about him. When he was her student, he'd gotten the very clear feeling that she thought he was a royal pain in the ass. He couldn't really blame her for that, he had been. But, judging from a few meetings he'd had with Headmaster Cid, she'd had other thoughts about him as well. Gifted, but troubled was the comment he heard most often.

"Tired?" he asked, looking down at her.

"Mmm..."

"I'll wake you up to eat and drink something in a few hours," he told her.

"Thanks," she grinned up at him for a rare, precious moment and then turned her head to fall back into sleep. She'd rolled onto her side, and her back was pressed up against the side of his leg. He wasn't sure if it was a newfound comfort around him because of what they had been through together or if it was simply because she wasn't feeling well and didn't have the energy to tell him to scram.

He'd been sleeping in the chair, watching over her the doctor had told him too. When he wasn't constantly with Quistis, he'd taken the time to make a few friends over the time he'd been stuck in the little town. The doctor himself was incredibly hard to dislike. Not even Seifer could find something distasteful about the cheery man. Perhaps he reminded him a bit too much of Selphie (the two would make an excellent couple if she ever decided to break up with the cowboy). But, other than that, he was already a good friend.

The first night Seifer had stumbled into town, he'd gotten himself checked out as well and relayed the story to the other man -- leaving out, of course, the part about being a criminal. As far as the doctor knew (Adam, Seifer later learned, was his name) Quistis and Seifer were a happy little couple who'd been caught in a bad storm while hiking through the pass. Seifer never bothered to correct the assumption.

He and Adam had spent a fair amount of time together before Quistis came around. They'd sat in the hotel lobby and had drinks together, musing over everything from their childhoods to politics. Seifer was genuinely surprised at how easy it was for him to talk to Adam, and a part of him cherished the sudden friendship he'd developed and was going to soon walk away from.

But, that was the story of his life. Everything he loved was eventually taken away. His family, his brothers and sisters from the orphanage, his mind, even his future had been robbed from him early on in life. The way he figured, he didn't have a whole lot to look forward to, and hoping or desiring anything was just going to lead him into further trouble. His dreams always worked against him.

Setting the dishes from breakfast aside, he eased down to lay beside Quistis on the bed. She was out of it, she wouldn't mind. Besides that, he'd gotten little sleep while waiting for her to come to again. For a long while he'd worried that she wasn't going to come back. He worried that maybe he hadn't done enough to save her, that he would have only just found her to have her snatched away like everything else in the world he'd ever tried to hold on to. The simple fact that his feelings toward her were changing probably put her in destiny's harsh and winding path. Without hesitation, she would be used as a pawn, removed to further torture him.

"Hey, Seifer?" Quistis suddenly rolled over next to him.

"What?" How many times now had she said that only to change her mind? He had things he needed to think about, and he really didn't appreciate her interrupting his thoughts, even if they were focused upon her.

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Give up the perfect opportunity to run," she clarified.

"I don't run," he shrugged. "I'm not a coward."

"I didn't say that you were," she pointed out.

He didn't say anymore in response to her question, and he didn't honestly think that she expected him to. Really, he didn't have the answer anyway. Why hadn't he taken his chance to get out of the situation all together? He'd tried to, but she didn't remember that. He'd tried so hard to walk away, but he _couldn't_.

Quistis shrugged, her eyes drifting closed again. Seifer was perfectly happy to be left to his thoughts.

The circled like a broken record, always coming back to the same point over and over again.

Either Quistis had been off in insane ramblings, or she'd inadvertently divulged a deep secret. Still, he knew her words would haunt him until he died. Chances were, they would never be spoken to him again. He certainly didn't expect them to be anyway.

He closed his eyes, traveling back to the moment in his mind.

They'd been walking for a few hours, and the sun was coming up high in the sky above them. It looked small and distant, the light from it seemingly devoid of heat. Even as it pounded against Quistis' back, she'd been shivering against him. Her arms were slung around his neck, her face buried against the side of his hood.

"Mmm...this is nice," she'd murmured.

He'd ignored her, moving onward.

The wind blew up at them, catching the underside of Seifer's coat and sending a cold chill through his entire body. Nothing would be so wonderful as getting out of Trabia. He hated the snow, hated the cold, and he hated being forced to live his life in it simply because the backcountry was the only place in the world where he wasn't immediately recognized.

"You're sweet....deep down," Quistis sighed.

He'd smiled a little to himself at that. Sweet was not an adjective often used to describe him.

However, her next words were what had tossed him into a complete tailspin.

"I do...I think I really do..." she rolled her head slightly to one side. "I love you, Seifer."

Seifer choked on the very air he was breathing, the world tilting and turning unnaturally underneath him. Had she really just said that? Was she in her right mind? People really only lost it completely when they got feverish, right? Quistis was just hypothermic...maybe she was just at the edge of sleep and not realizing what she was saying. Maybe she was letting her deepest, darkest secrets bleed through into her consciousness.

This secret, if it was one, was a doosy.

He rolled over in bed to look at her, remembering how lightheaded hearing her say those simple words had made him as all the blood rushed away from his head. It had shocked him so much that instinctively his body had prepared to fight or flee. She'd brought up raw, primal emotions in him. And, she'd forever changed his life because of it.

Had she meant it?

Did it matter?

Confused, he looked at her sleeping form. She looked peaceful, serene. He had nothing to offer her. It wasn't fair of him to even for a moment consider using what she'd said while not in a proper frame of mind against her.

Did her love _her_? Could he possibly love anyone? Seifer didn't know what love was.

He was going back with her, but not because of romance. He was tired of running, tired of wondering. And maybe, just maybe, if things went well they could get together in some way or another. They would make amends, he could move on with his life.

All the same, her voice would stick with him as being sincere. And it would get him through the long nights to come, allowing him the slight comfort of believing someone out there could see him as Seifer Almasy and genuinely liked what they saw.


	17. Coming Home

A/N: A little shorter than my other chapters...but, hey, you can't beat the speed. Posted within 2 hours of my previous update. :-P

Chapter 17: Coming Home

The boat lurched from side to side, leaving Quistis with a queasy feeling in her stomach. Seifer was acting the part of a traveling companion, standing beside her at the railing and watching the Centra continent grow steadily upon the horizon. They were on their way to see Edea before she took him back to Balamb, and tension was fairly radiating from him as the neared closer and closer to their childhood home.

Quistis herself hadn't seen Edea in some time. She'd been busy with SeeD missions, looking after her social life, and most recently tracking down Seifer. Currently, it was beyond her what she'd been thinking when she jumped on the mission. Naturally, at the time she'd never considered how difficult it would turn out to be.

"Have you talked to her lately?" Seifer suddenly asked, his eyes squinted halfway shut to block out glare from the water.

"Not for a while," she answered.

"Oh..." He didn't elaborate on whatever he was thinking. That wasn't really his style, and she didn't expect him to go into a long yarn about his feelings concerning his foster mother.

"She's taking in more kids now, you know," Quistis tossed out as a topic for small talk.

"I know, you told me already," he barked.

Had she? She didn't remember a lot of what she'd told him. She'd been drifting in and out of a lull through most of the trip over the pass.

"Maybe if you're free someday, you can feel free to write my biography since you seem to know everything I try to tell you," she rolled her eyes, knowing the comment was lame at best.

"I'd love to," he replied distractedly. They could see the lighthouse in the distance now. It was tall and white, appearing suddenly on the horizon like a monument.

Quistis stepped back from the rail for a moment, sweeping her eyes up and down the shore line she'd played on so often as a child. This was home.

"It's weird, isn't it?" she murmured. "Knowing that we spent so much time here and only remembering bits and pieces of it."

"I remember quite a bit of it," Seifer admitted, looking down at her for a moment.

"Really?" she was a little surprised. "My memories are hazy at best. I remember playing on the beach, I remember you and Squall fighting all the time, and I remember setting of fireworks."

"You were awful," he shook his head. "Didn't listen to anybody. And, Hyne were you bossy."

"I wasn't bossy!" She got defensive. If she was a little bossy, it was only because she was the oldest (she had a few months on Seifer that as a child seemed to make a gigantic difference). The rest of them hadn't the sense to take care of themselves, so it was her duty as a big sister to protect them and instill some order in their lives.

"Like hell you weren't bossy," he shook his head. "You used to force Squall to play dolls with you. Selphie would have loved to, but no...you wanted Squall. And he sucked at it. Always wandered off, or didn't reply the way you wanted him to when your doll asked his doll to dance."

"I see things have really changed," she snorted, remembering the night of the SeeD ball when she'd criticized him for dancing with Rinoa.

"He was afraid of you, I think," Seifer laughed. "We all were."

"Afraid of me?" She brought one hand up to her chest. "I find it hard to believe you were ever intimidated by me."

"You cried all the time and got me in trouble," he shook his head. "Every time I came near you, you'd start making little orders for me to do things for you. Hell, you were only a few months older than me, and I was bigger. But you started bawling every time I told you no, and then I was the bad guy."

Quistis didn't remember all of this, but she was sure that if she did her memories would cast a whole new glow on the situation. Seifer wasn't as innocent as he was portraying. She did remember how he'd constantly teased Zell. That had never changed.

"I wasn't that bad," she insisted.

"Oh, yes you were."

"I was not!" She secured her hands firmly on her hips. "We'll have Matron settle this...you'll see. She'll agree that I wasn't bossy."

"Yeah, whatever you say," Seifer rolled his eyes.

It had been a long time since Quistis had done any real thinking about her childhood. Her reminiscing with Seifer had unexpectedly lit a desire within her to learn more of what she'd forgotten. He seemed to remember everything with complete clarity. It wasn't fair that she should loose a whole half of her life while his was still complete.

"Hey, look," she grabbed his arm, pointing out to sea where the rest of the orphanage had come into view. "Doesn't it look great? The new paint and trees look really beautiful from way out here."

"Looks nice," he nodded. It took Quistis a moment to realize she was still holding on to his arm, and she dropped it as suddenly as she had grasped it. Things were becoming just a little too friendly between them for her tastes. Back in Trabia she'd been ready to toss him to the lions. Then he'd showed a little compassion, and all of the sudden he was her brother again.

_ Brother_.

She turned and looked at him. Part of her really liked the idea of Seifer as her brother, even though she knew he wasn't really. But, another part of her balked at the idea of an implied blood relation, and not for the reasons that she would have expected.

As much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, she was a little attracted to Seifer. He was incredibly good looking (any girl with eyes would be forced to admit that). On top of that, he was dangerous, which was an incredible draw. Good girls always liked bad boys, and it was difficult to get more goody-goody than Quistis. He was still mysterious like Squall, but unlike his rival, she felt that Seifer had real things he was hiding from the world. Squall just liked to be left alone to his feelings, Seifer was repressing something.

She tilted her head slightly, as if doing so would magically allow her to see deep into him.

"She's going to be glad to see you," Quistis announced, pushing her unwanted thoughts about Seifer aside to concentrate on more favorable ones.

"Maybe," he shrugged.

The boat made shore a short time later, and both walked the short distance to the orphanage, taking the time to fight off the few monsters who were still prowling the area. Monsters weren't nearly the problem that they had once been, which was really sort of a pity. A twisted little part of her liked the action.

"Hi!" A cute little boy with an abundance of dark hair greeted them as they walked in through the gates. The day was hot, and both of them were slightly rumpled from the walk and boat trip. Quistis felt sticky and uncomfortable. She wasn't overly fond of children, although they seemed to be distantly fascinated by her. The little boy's attention immediately shifted to Seifer, however.

"Hey," he smiled broadly at the child. "Is Matron around?"

"You know her?" the kid asked skeptically, narrowing his eyes at them. Quistis looked back and forth from the child to Seifer, not failing to notice the change in Seifer's demeanor. He was more at ease, but at the same time more tense. None of that tension was obvious on the surface though as he rumpled the kid's hair under one gloved hand.

"Yeah, I know her," he grinned.

"I'm Faber," the child introduced himself proudly. He had a little ball in one hand, but offered the other one for Seifer to shake. He didn't seem at all concerned with Quistis. She supposed he lacked a father figure, and Seifer showing up was a chance for him to show off his manliness to another member of the male species. Seifer was good natured enough about it, and he shook Faber's offered hand with the same air as if he were shaking the hand of any other adult.

"I'm Seifer," he offered when the handshake was over.

"Quistis? Seifer?" They both looked up when Edea came out the door, her slight build framed by the darkness behind her. Even though Quistis had been included in her words, her gaze was riveted on Seifer. Her lost child, probably the one she'd come to care the most about. She had to admit, she was a little jealous.

Seifer smiled slightly, obviously unsure of how to handle himself.

"Seifer! Sweetheart!" Edea rushed down the steps and tossed her delicate arms around him. "I'm so glad you've come to see me!" She hugged him tightly, looking decidedly frail wrapped in his arms.

"Oh...and Quistis," Edea broke the hug long enough to rest a hand on Quistis' upper arm. "You've brought him back to me." She smiled broadly, her eyes shiny with moisture.

Faber came around Seifer to stand beside Quistis, obviously puzzled at what he was seeing. She supposed that, in a way, Seifer was his big brother, and she his big sister. Faber was working through the logistics of that in his head as he watched his mother embrace the older man.

"You haven't changed a bit," Edea smiled up at him. Quistis was sensitized enough to Seifer to practically feel the overwhelming emotion bubbling up in him. He'd missed her. And, back once again in his mothers arms, he deteriorated into the confused child he had once been. He'd followed her into hell, and because of it his entire life had been taken away.

"Please...come in and stay a while," she took his hand and led him inside. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, Matron," he stuttered, saying his first words since she'd run from the house into his arms. Quistis and Faber stood together watching them walk together back into the house.

"What was that about?" Faber asked, scratching his head.

"Coming home after too long away," Quistis replied, looking down at him. He narrowed his dark eyes as he looked up at her.

"Welcome home, then."

Home, indeed. Taking the little boy's hand with a smile, she followed in Seifer and Edea's wake. As the two entered the cool, stone house together they saw Seifer and Edea seated at a table. She was fairly bursting with joy, and there were tears in Seifer's eyes.

She squeezed Faber's hand, frightened by seeing Seifer crying. He was trying his best to hide it, and nervously turned to wipe the dampness away when she walked in, but he couldn't hide what returning had done to him.

"Quistis, honey...sit with us," Edea smiled, not at all unnerved by the breakdown of Seifer's emotional state. He'd been through a lot in his time, and as Quistis let go of Faber's hand to take the seat beside him she had a feeling that the floodgates were only just beginning to open. He still had a lot to deal with, and enemies were waiting to face him. The end had only just begun, but this Seifer was not the same man who she'd looked at so many years ago.

Or, maybe he was...maybe he'd never changed at all. Perhaps he was the very same Seifer who'd played with her on the beach in what seemed a whole different lifetime.


	18. The Way of Life

A/N: Mmm...this was a fun chapter to write.

Chapter 18: The Way of Life

Not surprisingly, Faber took an immediate interest in learning to use a gunblade. The moment he set his eyes upon Hyperion, there was no turning back. Seifer couldn't help but like the little guy. Faber had spirit, and reminded Seifer of himself at the same age. Although Faber leaned more toward the innocent side, perhaps.

"Okay...Hyperion's kind of heavy," he explained, watching the child's eyes travel up and down the length of the gunblade with absolute delight, "so you're going to want to be careful."

"Right," Faber nodded. "Careful."

He smiled as he watched the kid pull on a pair of gloves and smooth his hair back. Seifer had disarmed the gun portion of the weapon, but the blade itself was still sharp, and he knew if Edea caught him letting Faber handle it, he'd get one hell of an ass chewing. Quistis obviously thought that he could do no wrong in Matron's eyes. The sun was just starting to set, and Edea had spent the entire day talking to him.

It had meant a lot to see her again and know that, despite everything, she still loved him as her son. Unconditional love was a mysterious thing. She had no reason he could fathom to feel so deeply toward him. Yet, she did, and without question or reason.

"Okay...you ready?" he asked.

"You bet," Faber nodded eagerly. He couldn't wait to get the gunblade in his hands, and Seifer couldn't blame him.

"Here you go," he tilted it toward him, pivoting it on the point of the blade. The handle was about even with Faber's nose, but he reached out with zest for it anyway. Seifer slowly let go of the weight, not wanting to hurt the child's pride by letting the sudden and unexpected weight of Hyperion knock him over. He knew what personal pride meant to a child, and he respected Faber's right to keep a firm grip on it.

"Whoa...it's heavy," he commented when all the weight was balanced against his little, gloved hand.

"It's been with me for a long time," Seifer squatted down a little to be even with Faber.

"Can I learn to use it?" he asked.

"Someday maybe," Seifer shrugged. He'd started early in his life. It took years to master the gunblade, and Faber was actually about the right age to begin training. Seifer wasn't sure he wanted to lead the kid into a life of fighting. His lifestyle had certainly never brought him anything good.

"This is so cool," Faber gushed, striking a quick, manly pose.

Seifer smiled, genuinely fond of the child. He wasn't exactly known for his affinity with children, and generally speaking he wasn't very fond of them. In fact, he liked to avoid them whenever possible. But, in a way, Faber was his little brother. He was family. And if there was one thing that Seifer felt strongly about, it was family.

"Matron is going to flip if she sees this, Seifer," Quistis announced, making her presence known as she came up behind them.

"Check it out," Faber started showing off for her. "I'm holding Hyperion."

"So you are," she smiled, but gave Seifer a scolding look for handing the child a weapon. It wasn't a toy, he was very aware of that. But he was also aware of the fact that if he denied Faber access to it, the kid would only find a way to get at it on his own, which would be much more dangerous.

"Seifer says I'm going to be a great gunblader someday," Faber grinned widely. He was fibbing, Seifer had said no such thing. But, he didn't say anything about it. A little white lie here and there to boost self-esteem wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Wouldn't you rather take up the whip?" Quistis asked, arching an eyebrow. "Why use a big old, heavy gunblade when you could be an expert with a whip?"

"A whip?" Faber looked at Seifer as if to ask if she was serious. "I want to use a good weapon."

Seifer laughed...hard. Quistis was always talking about how underrated the whip was in terms of weaponry. To give her some credit, she was remarkably good with hers, and the sight of her waving the thing about her head sent chills down his back. Still, the whip just didn't inspire the fear a long, menacing blade did. Her nose curled up in distaste, she turned her attention immediately away from the child who had so offended her beloved choice of weaponry.

"He's just like you," she snorted.

"Yep," Seifer smiled broadly, proud of the little guy for some reason.

She rolled her eyes, her hands falling on her hips in the classic sign that she'd had enough.

"Matron wants Faber inside, it's getting dark," she announced, finally delivering the message she'd come to give.

"Hyne...I'm not a little kid," Faber growled, still holding Hyperion up. Seifer took it back from him, and he reluctantly parted with it.

"Sure you are," Seifer replied, giving Faber a little jab with the end of the gunblade as he blazed by on his way inside. He kicked up dust in his wake, and the rest of the children who were still out and about took it as a sign to come in for the night. Like cattle, they followed their chosen leader.

"That kid worships the ground you walk on," Quistis noted as they walked together. She'd relaxed quite a bit since Trabia, and the change in her demeanor was startling. While they were in Trabia she'd had him tied up and would have rather thrown herself into the path of a marlboro than spend an extra second more with him than she had to. Currently, on balmy Centra, she was treating him as if nothing had ever occurred between them. It was like going right back to when they were kids. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

"A lot of people worship me," he retorted, grinning with his characteristic cocky air.

"I believe they're called Satanists," she answered quickly, her wit sharper than usual.

"Come on...I'm not that bad," he shook his head.

The environment of Edea's House had changed their attitudes toward one another. Both of them knew it would only hurt Edea to see Quistis treating Seifer like the criminal he was. He figured her new found fondness toward him was directly related to the fact that she didn't want to upset Matron. Besides, things were peaceful and even pleasant. What reason did either of them have to inject tension into the scene?

"You probably shouldn't be encouraging him to become a mercenary," she announced.

"Why do you say that?" he asked. "You're a mercenary. Part of your job used to be to openly encourage others to become mercenaries as well."

"He's just..." she paused, really thinking over her answer. "I think violence would ruin him."

"Faber is a born fighter," Seifer told her, knowing from personal experience.

"I'm not sure anyone is born a fighter," she shook her head.

They were steadily getting closer to the house, and Seifer found himself once again thinking about Trabia. She'd told him that she was in love with him. He watched her walk ahead of him and made a confused attempt at sorting out how he felt about that. He still wasn't at all sure that she'd meant it. After all, she was still taking him back to Balamb, wasn't she? Just because he'd saved her life, he couldn't expect her to forget everything that had happened.

"Are you coming?" she asked, noticing that he'd stopped.

"Sure."

Edea was shuffling small children every which way when they walked in. Some of them were obviously in need of a bath, and she was making a valiant attempt at herding them toward the bathroom. Quistis offered her help, and took two little girls by the hands to put them to bed for the night. She was good with children, but she always seemed nervous around them like they were going to go nuts and bite off her hand or something. There was a definite lack of exposure to children in her line of work. She was more comfortable, he supposed, facing a monster than a crying baby.

"Seifer," Edea was dragging one very upset little girl toward the bathroom. "Would you mind putting a few kids to bed for me? Thanks, dear." She disappeared around the corner before he had the chance to even formulate a reply to her question, which she's already answered for him anyway.

"Okay..." he looked down at the small faces looking up and him, and he shared in Quistis' anxiety. Two little girls, and one little boy -- Faber had most likely been added to the bath group. The girls were open mouthed, and one of them had a runny nose that she didn't appear to care about. The intimidation they all felt at having a strange man put them to bed was obvious. He wished Quistis would hurry up.

"I guess it's off to bed with you guys, huh?" he asked, leaning down.

The little girl with the runny nose screamed, sending a twitch racing through Seifer.

"Shh...no..." He wasn't sure what to do.

She continued to bawl, the pace of snot coming from her nose increasing as she did so.

"Seifer...what in the world?" Quistis reappeared, and he was so relieved to see her that he could have kissed her. "What's going on?"

"Put the girls to bed, please!" he begged, running over to her. "I got the boy...but geeze, that girl acts like I'm going to kill her."

"That's because your a man," she replied. "All little girls distrust strange men."

He rolled his eyes. He hated it when she treated him like he was an idiot. Thankfully, she took the two little girls, and murmuring softly to them disappeared down the hallway. That left only the little boy. Seifer turned to him, and offered his hand. The boy was hesitant, but he took it anyway, allowing Seifer to lead the way.

With few problems, he got the child tucked into bed. By the time he got back to the main room, Edea was miraculously done washing quite a few of the children, and those had to be put to bed as well. The next hour or so went on in the same exhausting fashion, and Seifer obtained a healthy respect for what his foster mother willingly put herself through. That woman had to have a lot of love in her.

"I don't know how you do it," Quistis said, mirroring his thoughts. Edea shrugged and busied herself by cleaning up after the long day.

"There's only one spare room," she announced as she picked toys up off the floor and shoved them into a blue, plastic bucket. "Although I'm sure Faber would be thrilled if you stayed with him, Seifer."

Seifer and Quistis exchanged glances, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was. Probably not. But, the idea of spending a little quality time in Quistis' bed was appealing.

He stopped his train of thoughts suddenly. What was he thinking? Just because she wasn't spitting on him and saying how much she hated him didn't mean that she liked him. Being civil wasn't being in love. He was planning his own execution with the way he was thinking. Quistis would never want to be with him, and why would he want to be with her anyway? Dammit...he didn't.

Quistis blushed a little and looked back at Edea.

"That would work very well, thank you."

That answered his question. She obviously hadn't been thinking the same thing he had been. No problem, he'd never _really _been considering it anyway. Right?

"Goodnight, Matron," Quistis smiled and gave the other woman a warm hug.

"Goodnight, Quistis," Edea replied, then went through the same ritual with Seifer. He hadn't anyone say goodnight to him with a hug in a very long time. In those moments, he would have been perfectly happy to live the rest of his life the same way as that one day had gone. Sitting in a place he called home, with a child who adored him, a woman who would always want him around...and Quistis. He dared not think what exactly she brought to the picture.

He followed her down the hallway, needing to get his things. They both had set their stuff down at the end of the hallway when they'd arrived, neither sure where to put it. Of course, the clean freak that Edea was, she hadn't been able to allow them to stay there. So, she'd moved their bags into the spare bedroom and set them on top of the bed. They both walked into the room with long, tired sighs.

Seifer had been through one of the most emotional days of his life. He didn't think coming back was going to effect him quite so much. He'd been humiliated when he'd started to bawl right then and there. He'd been even more embarrassed when Quistis and Faber walked in and saw him blubbering like an idiot. Seifer was not a man who cried. Honestly, he couldn't remember the last time that he had. Quistis hadn't said anything about it, but he knew that she'd seen him.

"I've got to find a boat to take us to Balamb," she announced. "I'm going to go out tomorrow and find the schedule of departing ships and see if I can book passage on one of them."

"Alright." So, she hadn't given up on taking him back. Always loyal to her job, and she was going to get the mission accomplished.

"Here...I think all of this is yours." She handed him a bag that had his trench coat slung over it. He set it down on the bed and started to dig through it, looking at all the contents.

"This isn't everything," he replied, shaking his head.

"What do you need?" she arched an eyebrow.

"My toothbrush." She paused and looked at him. "What? I always brush right before bed."

"Well...I don't know where it could be, everything else here is mine," she shrugged.

"You're kidding me...you forgot my toothbrush?"

"I took everything out of your room," she insisted. "If you had it with you, it's in there."

"Well..." he looked down dejectedly at his bag once. "Let's check all of the bags again." Quistis rolled her eyes, but obediently started emptying out the contents of her bag. Seifer did the same with his, searching for the object among rolled up socks and shirts.

"Hyne, Seifer, I don't know where it's at," she grumbled. Even as she spoke, she lifted up a sweater and the toothbrush fell to the floor. Seifer pounced on it like it was made of a precious metal.

"Knew you were holding out on me," he said, nudging her with his elbow.

"Right, trying to kill you slowly via tooth decay," she replied.

"You've done stranger things," he pointed out. "Besides, I'd think you'd want to be kind to my mouth. It saved your fingers, after all." She groaned, arching her back a little.

"You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"Probably not."

Their lives, he realized, were suddenly very domestic. He'd put children to bed with her, they'd joined forces to find his lost toothbrush, and amazingly, he didn't mind it at all. In fact, it was kind of nice. He'd never had anything even remotely like it before, and it felt like a gift.

"Goodnight, Seifer," she shook her head slowly, but smiled.

"Goodnight, Quisty," he smiled back. 

He fought the urge to lean down and kiss her, but as she looked up at him (he was sure her expression would have qualified as expectantly) it became progressively more difficult. Still, it nearly knocked the breath out of him when she stood up on her toes and pressed a light kiss to his mouth instead of the other way around. As she lowered herself back down onto flat feet, he blushed furiously. Had Quistis Trepe just kissed him? The woman who was taking blood money for his head? The woman who hated him with a passion and had tied him up on her floor for days? That same woman had just kissed him?

His head spun. But, it stabilized soon enough that he was able to catch her licking her lips. A cue to him that, whatever she might tell him come tomorrow, she'd enjoyed the little peck.

Grinning, he took her chin in his hand and placed his own goodnight kiss (tit for a tat anyway). His was all together less chaste, but she didn't pull away. As he slowly ended it, loving the taste and sound, he would have been hard pressed to admit that this wasn't the life he wanted. Even as he made his way to Faber's room, her kiss seemed to follow him. He settled in knowing the way life ought to be, and wanting that simple thing more than anything else in the world.


	19. Duty and Devotion

A/N: I'm not too crazy about this chapter, but if I stop right here and let myself get into a slump, it's going to be hard to get back out of it again. Also, I want to finish this fic as soon as possible. 

Chapter 19: Duty and Devotion 

By the time Quistis climbed out of bed the next morning, she was beginning to think she had completely lost her mind. She had, after all, kissed Seifer. The kiss wasn't what bothered her so much as who it miraculously landed on. That combined with the fact that she'd thought about it through most of the night was particularly disturbing. Even as she awoke, stretching her arms above her head in the comfortable (but slightly short) bed, she caught herself licking her lips and grinning.

She had no idea what had gotten into her. Everything had changed after the storm they had gotten stuck in. Seifer was suddenly sweet, even _affectionate_. And that, above all, was completely un-Seifer.

Quistis climbed out of bed and dressed, mentally preparing herself to handle the coming day. Her plans for the day were to find passage back to Balamb; the sooner they were back at Garden, the better. Everything was falling apart, nothing was going the way she had intended for it to. Even in her wildest dreams she'd never imagined anything like her trip out of Trabia would occur.

Edea was already up and busy by the time Quistis finally left her room. She'd spent quite a bit of time trying to convince herself that Seifer would just forget about the little goodnight kiss she had given him. It hadn't been much of a kiss anyway.

She shook her head, knowing that she was doing nothing but lying to herself. The both of the knew what that kiss was, although she was very reluctant to admit it. In the short amount of time that she had spent with Seifer, he'd somehow managed to endear himself to her. She was fond of him, actually more comfortable in his company than almost anyone else's. There was something blatant and honest about Seifer. He always let her know exactly what he thought of her, and because of that she always knew exactly what her standings were.

"Good morning," Edea smiled brightly as Quistis entered the kitchen. A very young boy was sitting on the floor in the corner playing with a matchbox car. Completely engrossed in his activity, he didn't even notice when Quistis entered the room.

"Morning, Matron," she smiled back, pausing to look out the window. The day was bright and sunny, the morning light able to make the grass appear even more green than usual. She was only moderately surprised to spot Seifer and Faber out in the said grass.

"They're very close already," Edea announced, seeing the direction of Quistis' vision.

"I noticed," Quistis nodded, watching the two interact from her hidden vantage point. They were sitting cross-legged in the grass, facing one another. Seifer was waving his hands franticly, the features of his face vibrantly alive as he relayed some dramatic story to the youngster. She couldn't help but crack a smile at the sight they presented. She had never seen Seifer interact with a child before, and it had never really occurred to her that he might ever chose to spend time with one. Faber and Seifer seemed to have a special sort of bond between them, one that was completely effortless on both of their parts. The little boy had taken to him upon first sight.

"Seifer acts tougher than he is," Edea replied, busying herself with breakfast.

"I have to take him back to Balamb." Quistis knew that Edea meant well, but she needed them to both be on the same page. Nothing could change the fact that Seifer was a criminal. Perhaps if the charges were dropped, or he were pardoned things could be different. But, the situation remained inevitable and irreversible. No matter how Quistis felt about him personally, she was still the servant of justice.

"I figured that you would," Edea sounded disappointed. Quistis immediately felt shame at hearing that tone in Edea's voice. She had been trained in childhood to respond to it, and the conditioning that she had been put through kicked in full force.

"It can't be helped," she shook her head, needing her mother to understand.

"Do you think he's guilty?" Edea asked, pausing her busy hands long enough to look up at Quistis through a cloud of dark hair that had fallen across her face.

"There's no denying what he's done," Quistis pointed out.

Edea didn't continue the debate, but her point had already been proven. Down in her heart, Quistis didn't really believe that Seifer deserved what was probably coming to him. He simply wasn't the same man. She, above all people, could testify to that fact. Still, changed or no, he'd done some awful things in his time. Maybe in a twisted way they were justifiable, but personal growth didn't wipe away the past.

Still, she glanced out the window. The picture he presented with Faber belied any misdeeds he may have committed. As much as he could have, Seifer looked like an angel. His halo was evident in Faber's glistening eyes.

"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes," Edea announced. "Would you go get Seifer in?"

"Sure, why not?" Quistis shrugged. All Matron ever seemed to ask her to do was deliver messages to the beloved Seifer.

Running a few fingers through her hair first, she stepped out into the warm morning. The air smelled sweet, a gentle wind carrying the scent of flowers from a nearby field. The same breeze pressed her skirt against the front of her legs as she walked.

"So anyway..." she caught bits and pieces of Seifer's story as she came into earshot. "The monster was towering above me, and all I had was my gunblade. I knew my first hit had to count, so I took a second to get a good shot." He paused, looking up as Quistis approached.

"Morning," she offered, feeling a little uncomfortable with his gaze on her. She knew what he was thinking about, and at all costs she wanted to derail his thoughts from the track they were obviously on.

"Morning," he replied. Faber, perhaps sensing the sudden raise in tension, grew immediately uncomfortable.

"Breakfast will be ready soon," she announced, much to Faber's relief. She got the feeling that he didn't like her very much. The child didn't have any particular reason to dislike her, not as far as Quistis could tell anyway, but every time she came within feet of Seifer, Faber would get suddenly tense.

"What're we having?" Seifer asked, a low smile riding his lips.

"How should I know?" Quistis asked, shrugging her shoulders.

"Well, you _were _just in there," he pointed out.

Edea had been cooking when Quistis walked in, but her attention was diverted by seeing Seifer and Faber out the window. In short, she hadn't paid the least attention to what Edea was doing once Seifer came into view. The other woman could have been hacking up a wriggly little blood soul, and Quistis would have been none the wiser.

"Probably cereal and muffins," Faber offered. "That's what we have every day."

Quistis was somewhat preoccupied as she watched Seifer offer the little boy his hand. She liked him, more than she thought, and she was torn between leaving him with Edea and taking him back to Garden. She'd told him back in Timber that he didn't have to come with her, but that had been a momentous moment of weakness. She hadn't thought of the moment since due to his refusal to run. He'd seemed ready to face whatever he had coming. The question, she realized, wasn't so much what Seifer was willing and ready to face, but what would she be able to put him through.

He was still Seifer, that was evident. But was he any longer the sorceress's knight? It seemed to her that he had already served his punishment through years worth of banishment and running. That hadn't seemed like such a horrid life until she'd lived somewhat in it.

"Let's go see," Seifer grinned down at his charge.

"Alright!" Faber gripped Seifer's hand tightly as they passed by Quistis on their way inside, leaving her standing alone behind them. Perturbed by being ignored, she watched them go. Seifer was still talking eagerly to Faber, who was listening as if no one else existed in the world. It was strange to watch them together. She had never seen him interact so well with anyone, not even his posse. In the day that had elapsed since they'd arrived at the orphanage, Seifer and Faber had become the best of friends, even brothers. She doubted anyone had ever broken through to the ever caustic Seifer quite so quickly.

Crossing her arms across her chest, Quistis huffed and made her own way back into the house. When she walked in everyone else was already seated at the long table, digging in to the breakfast Edea had made. Faber had been correct in his guess. Plates of muffins ran down the middle of the table, and all of the children already had bowls of cereal that they were busily eating out of. The room was quiet aside from a short verbal spat between two of the children and the crunch of chewing.

Seifer's head sat above everyone else's, and Quistis made a bee-line to sit next to him. She felt no desire to sit in between two snotty, bawling children. Aside from that, she was still a little on the upset side that he wasn't paying as close of attention to her as she figured he should have been. She _had _kissed him after all. Didn't that deserve just a little bit of attention and discussion?

She seated herself next to him, trying her best to act as if nothing were wrong.

"You eat too much sugar," she told him, feeling a slight amount of satisfaction from the criticism. At that moment, he had been pouring sugar on top of some already sweetened cereal, and he paused to look at her.

"No I don't," he replied, but stopped pouring on the sugar anyway.

She grabbed a muffin off a plate and jammed a butter knife into it, sawing away at the innocent little breakfast food.

"Something wrong?" Seifer asked, watching her maul the muffin.

"Of course not," she replied. "What could be wrong?"

"Oh...I don't know..." he leaned back in his chair and grinned at her. "Maybe you're having second thoughts?"

"I'm taking you back to Balamb," she barked, sending him a stiff look.

"I wasn't talking about Garden." He arched an eyebrow at her. Quistis stopped in the middle of buttering her muffin and gazed around the table. Everyone was absorbed in their own affairs, and the only one paying any attention to either Quistis or Seifer was Faber. He was like a horrid little stain that just wouldn't go away.

"Then I can't imagine what you were talking about," she evaded.

"Oh...I think you know." He had his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, and he was smiling. Quistis frowned. Wasn't this exactly what she had just been wanting? The same thing that she had been hoping to avoid as she climbed out of bed? She couldn't understand why she was being so fickle.

"I'm not having any second thoughts," she finally replied. Really, at that very moment, she wasn't. All things considered, she had rather enjoyed their little kiss (both of them). Telling Seifer that she was regretting her decision would only make her seem weak.

He laughed lightly to himself and went back to eating.

Quistis finished her breakfast as quickly as she could and excused herself. She had a lot to get done, and Seifer was becoming an ever larger distraction. The more she was around him, the more she started thinking of him in kinder and kinder terms. It was incredibly easy to forget who he was and what he had done when he was playing with children.

Trying hard to work through her very confused feelings, she walked back to her room to get enough money to pay for transport back to Balamb. She knew that rates would skyrocket if anyone knew that she was transporting a prisoner. And because Seifer was such an infamous criminal, she had a feeling that finding a ship to take them would be difficult.

She sighed, digging through her bag for the envelope of gil she had picked up on their way out of Timber. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, counting out the money when Seifer walked in.

"You know," he leaned against the door frame, "I'll go back to Garden whether you take me or not."

"Why?" She looked up, surprised not because he had followed her but that he had been able to do so without his shadow, Faber.

"You saw what life has been like for me," he shrugged. "I don't want to go on like that anymore."

"Nice to know that you've become such an upstanding citizen, Seifer," she rolled her eyes. "If you're eager to go back, it's only because you think it will benefit you in some way."

"I never said that it wouldn't." His smirk was gone, but she still was getting the feeling that he was poking fun at her.

"You have to stay here, today," she announced. "I'll have to pay double if anyone down at the docks sees you."

"Not a problem," he shrugged. "Wouldn't want you to go broke taking me in."

They had been so comfortable with each other up until the kiss. It had complicated things, and all of the tension was back. She didn't know how to act around him, wasn't sure whether or not to hate him or love him. She was torn, and it was making her indecisive and snappy. For his part, he was being remarkably well behaved.

"I'll be back sometime in the evening." She went to push past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"What happened?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You and me...we were getting along so well..." He was uncomfortably close. Quistis fought the urge to run away. Eventually, she would have to face the confused feelings that Seifer brought about in her. She just wasn't sure that she would like what she saw when she did confront them. They had known each other since childhood, and never really gotten to know one another at all. Now that she could see past the teasing and rude demeanor, she was finding out that a not so bad guy existed within him. One that, Hyne help her, she liked.

"You're not tied up," she pointed out. "I don't see what you have to complain about."

He frowned deeply, lines etching slowly across his forehead as he did so. At the same time, his grip on her arm increased.

"We're going back," he started, "and it would look bad if you were being nice to me. If you can't stand the thought of loosing face because of me, just tell me now."

"You're my prisoner. I'm not supposed to be nice to you."

"Right...duty calls," he snorted.

"I'm a SeeD, Seifer," she shrugged. "I follow orders without question. That's why you never became one."

"Because I think for myself," he added bitterly. "You said you weren't having second thoughts. Is Cid having them for you?"

"That has nothing to do with my mission," she shook her head.

"It has everything to do with your mission," he retorted quickly.

Maybe it did. Maybe she was failing her mission simply by becoming too involved. Two of her strongest senses were lashing out at one another, and she honestly wasn't sure which one of them to follow. She could show mercy and help Seifer, or she could do her duty. Could she do both? She didn't see how. Yet, he told her that regardless of whether or not she took him, he would be going back to Garden. That said, it was feasible to say that her mission was already completed. Which left the other alternative.

"If it makes any difference," she offered, "you're not who I thought you were."

He let go of her suddenly and walked away, leaving Quistis more confused than she had been before. She wished that they could go back to either hating each other as they had in the Trabian tavern, or back to the peace they had shared during the days following the blizzard that had just about taken her life. He'd saved her then, and she felt guilty for not attempting to save him in return.


	20. Telling the Truth

A/N: For the person who asked, I plan to finish this before the 15th. (I'm _really_ excited to start on my new one!) And, to Trista-Selphie...I'm planning on reading your stuff later tonight, and thanks so much for all the really nice compliments!! You're too sweet :-)

Chapter 20: Telling the Truth 

Seifer pulled a hat down low over his face as he walked onto the only boat still anchored in the harbor. Quistis was directly in front of him, her hair loose and a pair of sunglasses perched on her nose. They'd left the orphanage early in the morning, and Seifer had reluctantly awoken Faber to say goodbye. Never in his life had he become so attached to another human being in such a short amount of time. Generally speaking, he avoided all forms of bonding. Becoming close to someone meant facing the risk of loosing that person. Besides, he had himself to take care of.

Faber though, he had been able to breach every single one of Seifer's defenses with one smile. It was more than just the fact that Faber worshiped him as a hero, it was the explicit trust and affection that the child immediately displayed toward him. No one had ever liked him right away for who he was. He wasn't, after all, a very likeable guy.

"Tickets?" a big, sweaty man stuck out his hand at Quistis as they walked by.

"Right here," she said, dropping them elegantly in the man's grubby palm.

"Alright," he looked at the tickets, reading over the small print. "Balamb is the second stop, be paying attention because we're not going to make some sort of big announcement when we get there."

"Okay." Quistis paused and looked around the ship. "Do we have a room?"

"It's nothing fancy," the man scratched at the back of his head. "Down those steps over there...should be the third door on the right. Shouldn't need a key, the door doesn't lock."

"Wonderful." Quistis set Seifer a slightly disgusted look. He followed her obediently down the said steps, leaving the man behind to deal with the next lucky customers who had bought passage on the ship.

There were a string of small, yellowy lights running along the ceiling of the hallway. A few of the rooms, Seifer guessed, were storage. The ship obviously wasn't a passenger one by design. Their room was nothing more than a single, rectangle shaped hollow. A bed sat in the middle of it, and a mirror hung on one wall. Other than a small, frightening looking sink, there was no other furniture.

"This is nice..." Seifer grunted. "Real first class."

"It's not like we're going to be staying here very long," she replied.

Seifer was fighting the urge to ask her why she didn't just contact Garden and request a transport. It would have been cheaper, quicker, and much more comfortable. He figured that if he asked her, she would probably freak out and yell at him. She'd been awfully moody since their kiss.

The kiss. He'd liked it, a lot. And he wanted to find the chance to repeat the wonderful little occurrence. While sometimes Quistis seemed perfectly willing to press her lips to his yet again, most of the time she was reverting back to hostility. He didn't think she would kiss him without reason to do so, and he could find no other reason for it than that she liked him. That theory was further supported by the things that had happened between them since the snowstorm.

She'd slept in the same bed as him without complaint. She'd opened up to him and talked about their childhood. She'd joked and laughed with him. She'd told him that she loved him.

That still bothered him. Her confession pricked incessantly at his brain. If she was confident enough to be able to say that, or even think it, why was she so unsure now? What did he want from her anyway?

"You get what you pay for, I suppose," she announced, running one finger inside of the sink.

He set his things down on the floor and took a seat on the side of the bed. Quistis followed suit, flopping down beside him with a long sigh.

Seifer sat silent for sometime, debating whether or not to try and wring the truth from Quistis once and for all. His future in Balamb was shaky at best. He really wasn't sure just how angry people were at him. There could be a lynch mob waiting when he arrived, or a group of people wondering who the hell he was. If the former were the case, he didn't want to be left with many dangling questions.

"Matron was disappointed in me, I think," she suddenly blurted out. "For taking you back, I mean."

"Why?"

"She wanted me to leave you there with her." She bit at her bottom lip.

Edea was a one of a kind sort of woman. Her capacity to care for others never ceased to amaze Seifer , especially considering his own inabilities in that area. At least, until recently he'd had difficulty convincing himself to care about others.

"She could have just come with us, I suppose," Quistis said, laying back across the bed with a sigh. "Of course, then Faber would have wanted to come along too, and no one would be taking care of the rest of the children."

"Do you not like Faber, or something?" Seifer asked. As time went on, Quistis seemed more and more antagonistic toward the child, and he couldn't fathom any reason why they wouldn't get along.

"I like him well enough," she evaded, closing her eyes. The ship was rocking slightly back and forth with waves, but the movement didn't seem to bother her. Seifer had eventually gotten used to being on the water on their boat trip to Centra, but as they sat in their room he found himself struggling to acclimate himself once again. He liked to have both of his feet on the land, boats weren't his thing.

They sat for a few moments in silence, Seifer forcing his body to once again get used to being in constant motion. On the way to Centra he'd been mildly sea sick for the first day, not going so far as to vomit over the side of the ship, but he'd felt extremely uncomfortable. He wasn't looking forward to repeating the episode, and was sincerely hoping that he wouldn't have to. Thus far things were going well, his stomach felt quite content if not a little nervous.

"Are you okay?" Quistis asked, cracking one eye open.

"Great, why?"

"You're quiet," she shrugged. "Thought maybe you weren't feeling well again."

"Actually, I'm feeling pretty good this time," he took a deep breath. "We're not out on the open sea yet though." He was miserable just thinking about the hell of seasickness.

"You'll be okay," she replied confidently, sitting up on her elbows. "You never got sick before when we used to take Garden transports. I think it was just that you hadn't been on the water in a long time."

"Maybe," he frowned. There was nothing more disgusting, more completely unnerving to him than having his body revolt beyond his control in such a vile manner. He didn't like to see other people vomit, and he hated to do so himself.

"Want something for it?" she asked, looking concerned.

"You have something?"

"Well, after you spent the last trip hanging over a bucket and groaning miserably," she tilted her head a little, "I decided to buy a little something for motion sickness this time around."

Seifer was oddly touched. Quistis was taking care of him, watching out for him. It was a sign that she cared, and it was rare that someone would care enough to think ahead and plan for his comfort.

She didn't wait for him to reply, but got up and rummaged through her bag. She was wearing an airy blue and white dress that fell just blow her knees, and he traced the way it outlined her as she had her back to him. The look was fitting for her, summery and careless. Her hair spilling down her back and strappy sandals completed the look, and in his mind's eye he could see her wandering up and down some distant beach.

"Here you go," she stood up, smoothing down her dress, and handed him a small bottle. "They're probably going to make you drowsy though."

He looked down at the bottle with only slight interest, he was feeling fine. Still, he stashed it away for future use. One they left the harbor he figured he'd pop one and hopefully get some sleep. Quistis reclaimed her spot on the bed beside him, but she didn't lay back down. Instead she watched his every move with interest.

"Thanks," he finally said.

"No problem."

He looked at her for a moment, trying to work up the courage to ask her about what she had said back in Trabia. There wasn't generally a lack of candor apparent in him, but dealing with softer emotions was much different than criticizing someone.

Dragging a hand through his hair, he sighed, angry at himself for being such a coward.

Quistis looked at him curiously, noticing his unease.

"Sure you're feeling okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he nodded, working again at a good way of brining up her confession. He wasn't even completely sure that he wanted to know the truth if it turned out that he was merely kidding himself in thinking she could possibly like him. What reason did she have to like him?

"Okay...well, I'm going to go dig up a bucket just in case," she announced, skeptical of his insistence that he was feeling fine.

"Quistis," he grabbed her arm, "I'm fine."

"Something's bugging you," she shook her head. "I can tell."

"Really? When did you become the expert on me?" he asked.

"When I spent forever and a day trapped in a room with you," she retorted quickly.

"Then maybe you can tell me what's bothering me," he grinned. What better way to bring up an uncomfortable subject than force someone else to? She pressed her lips together and looked at him, knowing all the while what he was thinking of.

"Me?" she asked somewhat hesitantly. She was standing in front of him, and he was still holding on to her arm. The world was slowly beginning to bleed away, and in the dark room of the ship, the facts of their life didn't seem to matter so much as what was going on inside of them. Seifer, for one, was reluctant to look at what was going on inside of himself. Part of him was convinced that he only felt anything toward Quistis because he was starved for any sort of relationship.

"Something you said," he finally managed to spit the words out.

"Oh?" she arched one eyebrow curiously. "What did I say?"

Seifer stared up at her, once again unable to find the courage to tell her. He was getting closer, so much closer, but he still couldn't get himself to take that one last step.

"It's not important," he shrugged. "You weren't thinking clearly at the time anyway."

"Does this have anything to do with when I kissed you?" she asked.

"Yes and no..." How could he possibly explain that she'd blurted out some of the most important words in the English language to him?

Quistis smiled a little down at him, amused at his lack for words and insecurity. Seifer didn't like his sudden falling out of character, and frowned deeply in reply to her grin. She leaned down and kissed his cheek with a light, distinctly feminine laugh.

Seifer turned his head before she could pull away, because he knew that she was going to. If Quistis was anything, she was constant and predictable (for the most part anyway). His nose brushed against hers, their lips close enough that he could feel her breath. The rocking of the boat seemed to increase in those moments, nearly sending him off balance. His head spun, and his eyes closed halfway.

Her caught her mouth once, lightly. There was barely any contact to the kiss, just a light brushing of his lips across her bottom one. Seifer had never done anything so delicately. It was like he was suddenly worried about breaking her, knowing all the while that if she did break it would be into hundreds of shards left to lodge under his skin. She had the capacity to hurt him terribly in those moments, but as he returned for a second light kiss, she hadn't pulled away. Instead, she gently returned the gesture, prolonging their contact by precious seconds.

"Seifer?" she murmured against his mouth, her legs folding underneath her as she dropped down onto her knees on the floor.

"Hmm?" He kissed her again, letting go of her arm in order to frame her face with his hands. It didn't matter that she was the bounty hunter and he the criminal. Social standings are easily forgotten in solitude, and they well could have been the only two people in the world.

She scooted toward him a little, her stomach pressed against the bed, his knees flanking her on either side.

"This shouldn't have happened," she whispered, opening her eyes to look at him.

"But it did," he pointed out. Seifer had spent the past few years of his life trying to forget the past. It had taken him a long while to realize that it was just that, the _past_. There was nothing he could do to change it, he could only hope to take a lesson from it and move on. The past was hard to let go of, almost as difficult as it had been for him to finally relinquish his hold on his dreams. He'd strangled them to death, held them until they turned to dust in his hands. By the time he'd come to release them, there was little left for him to move on to. A life as a fugitive, a man without a face or name wandering listlessly about the world. Only since Quistis had shown up that dark morning in Timber had he grasped back onto life and hope.

She looked down, her hands resting on his thighs.

"I tried to leave you there, you know," he informed her. "Back in Timber, in the blizzard. I walked away out into the snow...but I couldn't keep going. I turned around and got you because I _couldn't _leave you. And, damn, I tried hard to."

Her head snapped up, her eyes widening in surprise. He supposed that she figured he'd changed before the snowstorm, enabling her to reason out why he'd saved her in the first place. In a way, he supposed he hadn't changed so much as allowed part of himself in control that he didn't normally. He was the same man who'd become the sorceress' knight, he was the same child who had pulled her hair and stole her toys, he was still Seifer Almasy. She had to realize that the man she was looking at had been present the entire time, perhaps suppressed or covered up, but always at the core of his being.

"You were out of it," he shook his head, wrapping an arm slowly around her waist. "Going on and on about Squall, and Garden..."

Her blue eyes searched his, looking for some indication of where she was headed with his story.

Seifer leaned forward to kiss her again, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the look on her face when he spoke. Nuzzling his face against hers, he murmured, "You said that you love me."

She stiffened in his grasp, probably becoming really aware for the first time of what they were doing. She was tucked against him, their intimacy seemingly non-sequitor with their destination.

"I did?" she finally choked out.

Now he needed to see her expression, he had to know the truth.

Her face was flushed and pale, her eyes wide. Luckily, she didn't seem angry or even particularly embarrassed, just surprised.

"Do you?"

She paused. "I don't know..."

It wasn't a no, and that was something at least. He searched her eyes for a moment, his arm tightening slightly around her to bring her up more firmly against the side of the bed.

"What about you?" She turned the situation around, looking up at him with blatant curiosity. Did he? No...not Could he tell her that? Absolutely not. He liked her, but love wasn't part of Seifer's vocabulary. How was a person supposed to recognize love anyway?

"That's a good question."

She planted one more clinging kiss to his mouth before pushing against his knees to stand back up. Seifer watched her walk out of the room, still trying to find the answer to that one simple question. Did he love her? Could he love her? With him, love was a fragile and crumbling thing, a neglected art that had been long since forgotten.


	21. Facing the Future

A/N: This fic is now nearing completion. I'm not sure at this point exactly how many chapters are going to be left, but it should be done in a week or so anyway. That is, if I keep up my writing a chapter a day thing that's been going on recently. Anyway, remember there's going to be an alternate ending.

Chapter 21: Facing the Future

Quistis Trepe stood on the deck of the small, cargo ship and looked out over the cobalt city of Balamb. Gulls flew overhead, screaming their complaints to anyone around to listen. The day, as it should have been, was overcast. Dark, rumbling clouds filled the wide expanse of the sky and threatened to drench the island county. This day could have only been gloomy, and even had the sun been shining Quistis still wouldn't have felt at ease.

Seifer was below deck in their room, fast asleep. As soon as they'd gotten out onto the open sea, his motion sickness had kicked in again. He'd spent most of the trip curled up in bed dozing. It was a preferable way to spend the trip than watching him be miserable. She'd wandered in and out of the room to check on him from time to time, and at night she crawled in beside him. Luckily, the second day out the seas calmed somewhat and Seifer's condition began to improve.

Tucking an errant piece of hair firmly behind her ear, Quistis turned to deliver the bad news. They were finally back in Balamb, and Seifer was about to change hands.

He was already awake when she walked in, although he had yet to get out of bed. His head peeking out from under the sheets, he smiled at her.

"We're at Balamb, aren't we?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"I noticed the boat not rocking so damn much." He tossed off the covers in one, fluid motion to reveal a pair of blue and green flannel boxers.

Quistis busied herself getting their things together. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," he shrugged non-committaly, pulling on a pair of dark pants.

"Oh..." She placed one hand on her hip and watched him pull a shirt over his head. "Because, I was just thinking that if you need some recovery time or anything...we could just stay a night in Balamb." Quistis mentally slapped herself after hearing the idea verbalized. Her tongue had been running away with her for the past few days, and there seemed to be no stopping it. She still couldn't believe she'd actually told him that she was in love with him. Of all the things to spontaneously blurt out...she for some reason had chosen a heartfelt confession.

The question of whether or not she was in love with him was still up in the air. All the times she'd really thought that she was in love it had only turned out to be a childish infatuation, which led Quistis to the conclusion that she really had no concept of what real love felt like. That taken into consideration, it was impossible for her to say whether or not love was the proper classification for her feelings.

"I think I'd rather just go," Seifer finally replied to her suggestion. Quistis tried her best to hide the disappointment she felt.

She couldn't quite put her finger on the moment when she'd begun to feel anything toward him. It had all happened so covertly, it had snuck up on her and suddenly attacked to force her awareness. Presently, it would have been silly for her to deny that she felt something for Seifer. She liked him, liked being around him. Oddly enough, he wasn't even really that much different from the person she remembered. His mannerisms maybe had softened a bit, and he'd matured, but he was still Seifer.

"Are you sure?" she asked, sweeping hair away from her face.

He shrugged. "Sure."

Quistis felt depressed. It was the story of her life to just discover something only to loose it. Over the years she'd lost almost everything that she'd come to love. She'd lost her position as an instructor never to regain it. She'd lost her family not once, but twice. She'd lost Squall. She'd lost touch with her life. Perhaps she and Seifer had more in common than she'd ever realized.

Seifer finished tucking his shirt in as Quistis finished packing. The ship was only staying in Balamb harbor for as long as it took to unload and then reload again. As Quistis had stood on deck contemplating whether to retrieve Seifer or simply let the boat take them back out to sea, the sailors had been hauling boxes off the ship. They soon would start loading new goods and would set out once again.

They paused, looking across the room at one another. Regardless of how it was going to look, Quistis had no plans to restrain Seifer again. At this point, if he felt the need to escape she wasn't about to stop him. In fact, she would have encouraged him to do so. However, he seemed determined to face whatever he had coming. It was the same pride and arrogance that had driven him to be so irritating as a child that now glistened with the kind of honor a knight of the old code might display. So many contradictions and only one man to hold them.

Quistis handed him his trench coat and watched as he shrugged into it. Late the night before he'd shaved and aside from the too long hair and wiry frame, he looked exactly as he had a lifetime before. The coat was a little more tattered, his scar no longer red or angry but just a light colored, slightly puffy line.

"Ready to go?" he asked, offering her a gloved hand.

Quistis shook her head, but took his offered hand anyway. She was currently in possession of Hyperion, so the gloves were nothing more than part of the uniform. She wished that he would take them off so that she could hold his hand for real.

Together they made their way back down the hall with the yellowy lights and back up to the gloomy deck. Quistis, for the first time, wasn't questioning her feelings but going along with them unquestioningly. In a matter of days, Seifer could be just another memory, and she didn't want her last moments with him to be filled with internal strife and confusion. The threat suddenly not having anymore time posed forced her to put aside any questions she may have still had.

"You two getting off anytime soon?" a scraggly little man asked as he walked by pushing a red dolly. "Sure are taking your sweet time."

Quistis ignored him, very much disliking most of the sailors that she had met.

Balamb loomed before them, large and imposing. Next to her, Seifer took a deep breath. This was it...this was the end. There was nothing left that she could do besides hope. The salty air and sea birds were the very messengers of death.

"Let's go." Seifer started forward, dragging her behind him down onto the docks. People were milling about, a few fish boats unloading iced boxes of smelly fish. No one seemed to immediately notice Seifer as he wandered back into his once home. There was, however, a flashy green and yellow Garden car waiting. A lanky SeeD laid stretched against the side, his arms crossed in front of him. Seifer's steps faltered when he spotted the man in the black and gold uniform.

_ Irvine_.

Quistis stepped in front of Seifer and waved to her friend. The cowboy waved back, his once lanky hair now cropped short, but still wild enough to give him a charming, rumpled look.

Seifer followed close behind Quistis as they walked up to Irvine, his breathing shallow and quick. His insistence upon returning had blinded her somewhat to the fear he must have felt at seeing Balamb once again. As they walked up to meet Irvine and climb into the car, the tension radiating from him became more and more thick.

"Hey, Quistis," Irvine smiled broadly, his blue eyes then traveling to her companion. "Seifer."

"Thanks for coming to pick us up, Irvine," Quistis offered, really feeling little gratitude toward him for the action.

"Not a problem," he replied. "You've been gone for a long time. Its great to see you again. Couldn't believe it when Cid called me in and told me that you were going to be coming in by boat in a few days. Everybody's real excited to see you."

It didn't seem to bother Irvine in the slightest that Seifer was being treated like anything but a dangerous criminal. Quistis was still holding tightly onto his hand. When Irvine turned and opened the car door for her, she ushered in the unusually quiet Seifer first. He slid inside, and she slid in next to him. Irvine, with no comment, got in last and started the car to drive them back to Garden.

The car lurched from side to side, and the buildings of Balamb flashed by the window in a light blue and purple blur. Irvine had his back turned to the unhappy couple, his eyes on the road.

"How did they know we were coming?" Seifer whispered, leaning toward her.

"I told the ship captain that I was a SeeD to get a discount, and he contact Garden to confirm," she replied quietly.

He looked pale, and he pressed his lips tightly together as the city fell behind them to be replaced by the green of the Alcauld plains. They had spent so many years in cars on the very same road, and it was hard for Quistis to realize that they weren't, in fact, just going off on another SeeD exam.

It didn't take long before the flashy Garden appeared on the horizon and began growing like a vicious, malignant cancer. Never in her life had Quistis been so unhappy to see the attractive if awkward building.

No one was waiting out front as she had imagined, either to welcome her home or to catch a glimpse of the infamous Seifer Almasy. That in itself was a sort of relief, people weren't still angry enough that they were waiting to get their shot in. Irvine pulled into the garage, the car lurching to a stop with sickening finality. Quistis' stomach dropped, and the grip she had on Seifer's hand tightened.

Two more SeeDs were waiting in the garage, one of them much too familiar. Squall, his lanky brown hair hanging down into his eyes and the iridescent blue gunblade at his side.

"Good to have you back," he smiled slightly at Quistis when she got out of the car. His smile went away, but he didn't scowl as Seifer climbed out behind her. Instead, he offered the other man a tight nod. The two had always had a sort of strange understanding between them, even though they had never openly gotten along. Quistis had always gotten the feeling that they were a little more friendly than anyone knew. They didn't take what the other did or said personally, and they both seemed to know exactly what the other needed (which was part of what allowed them to antagonize one another so well).

Quistis returned Squall's smile with some effort.

"Cid is going to want to talk to you," Squall announced needlessly. "We can take Seifer off your hands now, if you'd like."

The open ended sentence left Quistis wanting to say no, but she knew that it wasn't really an option. Instead, she turned and offered Seifer all she could really give him, a small smile, before handing him over to Squall and the other SeeD. They each took one arm and led Seifer away, his gray trench coat waving behind him with the pace of their walk. Quistis watched him go, silent as she stood beside Irvine.

"You alright?" he asked, nudging her with one arm.

"Just fine," she bit out, unable to believe what she had just done. She'd taken the man she loved and turned him over. She'd betrayed him when she should have stood by him. Hyperion still dug into her back where she'd slid it beneath her pack, a reminder of the wrong she had just committed. She felt sick.

Irvine gave her a suspicious look and reached out to bring her into a hug.

"A lot has happened while you were gone," he announced, one hand traveling comfortingly down her back. "Get settled in, and we'll fill you in, okay?"

Irvine how no idea how much had happened.

Seifer had come into her life and now just as quickly he had left it, and it was all her own fault. He'd helped her, and she hadn't helped him. Who was the real monster? Quistis deserved more to be on trial than he did.

"Thanks, Irvine," she smiled lightly at him and turned to leave. She was in no mood to talk. Each step tapped Hyperion against her back, reminding her over and over again. What a dismal day. The future had become the present, and the outlook was dull.

She wished she'd kissed him goodbye.


	22. On Trial

A/N: I know Seifer and Squall seem sort of unusually buddy-buddy in this chapter, but I've always sort of thought that they understood one another. They didn't hate each other, just found themselves on different sides of the fence. 

Chapter 22: On Trial

Garden had been deemed a neutral enough ground on which to hold Seifer's trial. The people of Galbadia, apparently, were after his head. Those in Esthar who had been forced to deal with the aftermath of the lunar cry were also quite peeved with him. Each had sent representatives and witnesses to the trial (never mind that half of their complaints hadn't been his fault). He supposed everyone needed someone to blame, and as Ultimecia was conveniently unavailable, he was the most obvious scapegoat.

For the first day, he'd been held in a detention area, the same room in fact that he'd broken out of in order to chase after Squall to Timber. If he'd ignored the urge to run into the fray, it was quite possible that he would have never found himself in the mess he was currently in.

Squall came by to visit often, although the others had kept their distance. With as easy as he was to pick on and start a fight with, Seifer's feelings toward Squall were really rather friendly. Squall was always willing to fight back, and the constant race to best one another had driven them to become the master gunbladers that they both were. On this particular day, three long days following his arrival in Balamb, Seifer sat and stared across a shiny table at his rival.

"The trial's set for tomorrow," Squall announced, tenting his hands.

"Yay," Seifer rolled his eyes. He wasn't exactly eager to have all of the past dug up and displayed.

"I'm set to testify." Squall showed no emotion as he broke the news to Seifer. He had been around to see most -of the more horrible things that Seifer had done, not among the least having occurred in the D-District prison. He only vaguely remembered watching the brunette across from him squirm with uncomfort as Seifer tried to pry answers out of him.

"Against me?"

"You do what you have to," Squall shrugged nonchalantly.

That had always been Squall's philosophy on life. He did what had to be done, and he didn't regret the decisions he had been forced to make. It was probably an easy way to view the world. You do what you have to, and there's nothing you can do to change that. It allowed for a lot of guilt and regret to be forgotten and shifted responsibility on to someone else's shoulders. Squall had the right idea. It was too bad, Seifer thought, that he'd missed his chance to adopt the same ideas.

"Quistis is as well." Seifer had a hard time hiding the emotion that he felt concerning this new piece of news. Quistis was going to testify against him? He'd thought that they were..._something_.

"Really?" he choked out the word, knowing if he didn't reply at all Squall would know that he felt something toward the blonde.

"She's being forced to," Squall blinked slowly. "Cid is rushing the trial, the Galbadians got angry at the sudden crunch to gather their case, and Cid compromised by forcing those of us unwilling to take the stand by holding our SeeD membership hostage."

"Quistis didn't want to testify?"

"She was the only one."

Seifer thought that over for a moment. Maybe then they were something.

"Rinoa thinks she's sweet on you." Squall blushed a little at repeating Rinoa's words. He wasn't comfortable getting involved in other people's relationships. In fact, Seifer doubted that he was still completely comfortable in his own relationship.

Seifer smiled to himself. She was sweet on him. Even if the whole trial turned sour and ended up being the end of him, it didn't seem quite so dismal knowing that Quistis Trepe liked him back. Wondering only at the back of his mind when he'd become such a sap, he watched Squall stand up and stretch.

"Speaking of Rinoa," he sighed. "I've got to go."

"Cracking the whip, eh?" Seifer laughed. Squall was whipped. Of course, Seifer was really one to talk.

Squall nodded and pulled his fur colored jacket on. Seifer had never liked the jacket. It fell about to Squall's last rib, and the big fluffy collar made it seem all the more feminine. He'd hoped that over time Squall would realize he looked like a woman with a boa and ditch the damn thing. Obviously, he had yet to take a peek in the mirror.

He left without so much as a goodbye, formality wasn't really Squall's style. Left alone, Seifer found himself thinking of Quistis. He'd never imagined that she and he would ever find themselves on friendly terms. He'd maybe imagined her naked from time while sitting in her class, and he'd certainly dreamed up a few vibrant fantasies, but none of them involved love. There was a big difference between day dreaming about her in her underwear, and day dreaming about just having the opportunity to be around her.

Maybe things wouldn't turn out so bad, maybe they'd have their chance. He wanted to go back to Faber. He wanted some Faber's of his own. He wanted Quistis. All of that was hanging on the outcome of the trial.

Seifer didn't sleep well that night. He tossed and turned, thoughts of family and death intermingling in his mind. By the time morning came, he'd gotten maybe a few hours worth of sleep. Dark circles had formed under his tired eyes, and the sight he presented was just pathetic enough to maybe take mercy on. He'd also been able to grow back the shadow of a beard, and his hair was slightly disheveled. It was no longer slicked back like he'd once had it, but hanging in small chunks about his head.

The trail was being held privately in the quad, which had been transformed to suit that specific purpose. When Seifer walked in, held on either side by two SeeDs, a good number of people he recognized looked up at him. He spotted Squall, Zell, and Quistis right away. On Squall's right hand side sat Rinoa, and on the other side of Quistis sat Irvine, although Seifer didn't immediately recognize him.

He was sat down in a rather unforgiving chair. He had his back to most of the people, facing only Cid and three other men who he didn't recognize. There was no jury, Seifer was too infamous a criminal to be tried by jury. Instead, his fate laid in the hands of a few select men, Cid among them.

With little ceremony, the trial began. The first witness against him, not surprisingly, was Squall. There was, he supposed, no defense. Everyone knew what he had done, it was just a matter of deciding the right punishment once all the facts came out.

Squall, speaking more words than Seifer had ever known him to in one sitting, calmly described Seifer's attack on the president of Galbadia, Vinzer Deling. He did so with little emotion, not seeming to blame or sympathize with Seifer. He was the model of stoicism. Moving on past the president, he described seeing Seifer in the parade in Deling City and the battle that resulted.

The tension in the room rose dramatically as Squall talked about the torture he suffered in the D-District prison. He left out quite a bit of detail, going only so far as to not reveal any of his personal feelings on the subject but still relay the story. He went on to tell of Seifer's exploits upon the mobile Galbadia Garden, and the attack which he had launched onto Balamb Garden. He did admit that he had wished afterward that he had moved to attack Galbadia Garden first, it made sense tactically.

Squall's unemotional testimony came to a close with his description of Seifer upon the Lunatic Pandora. That had been Seifer's last stand, not including his throwing Rinoa to Adel. That event Squall narrated with a bit more verve.

Seifer was feeling rather depressed by the time Squall had left the stand. His testimony alone seemed enough to clinch the death penalty. After all, how many horrible crimes had he committed just in that one story? Hyne only knew what other things would be presented.

Zell came next, his eyes hot and angry as they landed on Seifer. He'd teased Zell without mercy, but other than that he could think of nothing in particular that he'd done to the fighter.

"Seifer is a bully without conscience," Zell announced, his chin high. The wuss, he'd only been able to say so knowing there would be no repercussions. "He abandoned us on our SeeD field exam to fight off monsters and soldiers ourselves, then acted as if he had done all of the work. He's not happy unless he's antagonizing someone."

Rolling his eyes, Seifer tried not to jump up and strangle the blonde. Nothing that Zell was describing was a crime, although it did say something for Seifer's character. He wasn't a nice guy. In fact, he was a jerk. His stomach rolling, Seifer watched Zell step down from the stand and Selphie fill the empty spot that he left.

"Seifer ordered a missile attack upon both this Garden and the one in Trabia that I originally studied at," she announced, her head held high. "Squall managed to save this Garden, but the one in Trabia was hit and damaged badly. Many students there died and many others were seriously injured." She went on to dissolve into tears while talking of the place she had grown up. Seifer had ordered the attack, but he'd been strictly under orders at the time, he'd even told Squall as much.

Still, the way things were going, the outlook was not good. It took quite some time for Selphie to be calmed down enough to continue with her testimony. Her eyes were puffy red, her nose running, by the time she reclaimed her seat next to Irvine. Seifer watched her walk back to her seat, his eyes momentarily meeting the unhappy ones of Quistis. She was coming up soon as a witness, and he was dreading to hear what she had to say. Regardless of how she felt about him, she would tell the truth. And that would be he last twist in the knot of the noose tightening around Seifer's neck. Things certainly weren't looking bright.

He sunk down in his chair, trying to hide his despair from those present. The least he could do is go down like a man.

The following two people were ones that Seifer didn't recognize. They focused on the atrocities following the lunar cry. Seifer, really, had nothing to do with the lunar cry. The stupid people of Esthar shouldn't have dug the damn thing up if they didn't want something bad to happen. They had lived under Adel, and Seifer couldn't honestly thing of much worse.

Wallowing in depression, he watched the faces of the men who held his future in their hands. Cid was sympathetic enough, and Seifer had a good feeling that the older man would go to bat for him. Squall had indicated as much on his trips to the detention room where Seifer was being held. Cid had rushed the trial in order to prevent a strong case from being built, and Seifer was thankful for that. Cid was a good man.

Although, listening to so many people tell of the many and varied ways in which he had ruined their lives, Seifer started to wonder if he didn't deserve whatever he had coming.

In order to derail his dark thoughts, he cast his eyes around the once happy quad. He was surprised that Selphie hadn't decorated with "Hang Seifer" balloons or something. In fact, the versatile space was stripped of almost all decoration. The spartan décor was fitting. It looked as poor as he felt, and he liked to have his surroundings reflect his mood.

A disturbance toward the back of the room interrupted his thoughts. He turned, straining his neck to see what everyone else was looking at. Part of him figured that it was probably some disgruntled person come to kill him. A bullet, had had to admit, was preferable to sitting through more of the trial. It was torture of the most heinous kind.

Still, he was surprised when Edea stepped out of the crowd, Faber at her side. His little hand was clasped tightly in her own. His heart soared at seeing Edea, but sunk when he spotted Faber. The last thing he wanted was for Faber to find out that he wasn't much of a hero. Having the little kid find out all the things that he'd done in the past was a frightening idea. The one person in the world who thought Seifer was one of the best human beings alive was about to find out that he was nothing better than scum.

Edea smiled at Seifer, then at Quistis, and took a seat directly behind him. He turned around to look at her, puzzled as to why she'd had shown up and even more so concerning Faber's presence.

"Don't worry, sweetie," she whispered. "Everything's going to be fine."

He wanted to believe her, but as he turned around to face front again, the name was called that he had so been dreading. Edea's hand landed firmly on his shoulder, comforting and strong as Quistis Trepe walked up to take the stand. Her blue eyes met his, then traveled back to Edea's. This, he realized, was going to be the clincher. If not to the men of his makeshift jury, then certainly to himself.

Quistis was going to be the death of him.


	23. In With the Tide

A/N: *grins* This is a good chapter...I hope you guys enjoy it after complaining about my cliffhanger from last chapter. 

Chapter 23: In With the Tide

Quistis looked out over the crowd of people, her palms sweating nervously. Seifer was staring at her, his green eyes wide and afraid. She knew that she was walking the line between betraying him and betraying the rest of her friends. Unknown to all of them, however, Quistis had a plan. She'd spoken extensively to Cid and discovered all she could about the way Seifer's case was going to be presented.

Her eyes traveled momentarily to Edea. The very day that she had given up custody of Seifer, she had contacted Matron. She'd been worried at first that the other woman wouldn't be able to show up in time.

A little, balding man (the Galbadian lawyer) wandered up to her, his hands in his pockets. Quistis immediately disliked him. He knew that she'd balked at the idea of testifying against Seifer, and he was going to make it as difficult as possible for her to say what she wanted. But, try as he might, it was going to be said. That, partly, was why Edea was present.

"Quistis Trepe," he looked up at her, "you're the SeeD who brought Mr. Almasy in, are you not."

"I am not," she replied, looking back at him calmly.

Her answer surprised him.

"You're not?" he asked. "May I remind you that you're under oath."

"Seifer came back of his own will," Quistis answered. Everyone shifted in their seats, but Seifer was easing up a bit. The tense look on his face was starting to relax. Quistis was going to do all she could to save him, and when he plan unfolded she felt confident that he'd have a shot at getting off.

"If he came back completely on his own, why were you...the SeeD assigned to hunt him down...with him?" The lawyer wasn't a very good one, he was playing right into what Quistis wanted to say. But, her first response had interrupted his flow of thought.

"I followed him into Timber, and when I found him he wasn't the same man I was looking for," she replied. "And, he saved my life when we got caught in a snowstorm."

"What about years ago, didn't he try to kill you?"

"No, he did not."

The lawyer, and most of the people in the audience, stared at her with wide eyes.

"Are you saying the battles on Lunatic Pandora and Galbadia Garden never took place?" he asked in disbelief.

"No," Quistis shook her head. "But Seifer's intention clearly was to defend Edea Kramer, who had taken care of him as a child, from what he perceived as a threat." Quistis had learned over time that the truth was subjective, and stories what the truth really was would differ by perspective.

"But he physically attacked you, didn't he?" the lawyer asked, trying his best to pry something out of her.

"No, he didn't," Quistis admitted. During the course of the battle he had never physically attacked her.

"But he attacked other members of your group," the balding man seemed suddenly proud of himself, thinking he had blocked Quistis into a corner.

"No, I don't believe that he did," Quistis replied. "We made the first move, he only reacted to our offense. Self-defense, if you'll recall, is not a crime."

"He attacked this very Garden," the lawyer pointed out.

"We would have attacked his first had we been prepared to do so," she shrugged. "Only days before this very Garden had been attacking itself when most of the students went on a hunt for Cid and the SeeDs."

It was unfair to persecute Seifer for his wrongs while so many others were going to go completely unnoticed. Seifer was smiling at her, so was Edea. Squall's look was indifferent, and the expressions from the rest of her friends (aside from Rinoa) were simply confused. Rinoa was beaming, her hands gripping tightly onto Squall's arm.

"Seifer has already been punished for anything he may have done wrong," Quistis went on, knowing that she was speaking out of turn. "He's been on the run for two years now, living in the most unforgiving areas of the world. He's been banished from his home, he can't see his friends, and he can't go anywhere without worrying someone may shoot him in the back for the bounty on his head."

She took a breath, raising her voice when the lawyer went to stop her.

"He's a better man than you would ever hope to be," she barked. "He came back here on his own to face this. I for one would not have had I been in his shoes. He saved my life when all I meant to him was someone who was after his head. He has earned my respect."

"We're all very glad that you're so fond of Mr. Almasy," the lawyer was getting irritated, but Quistis had already made her point, and it was evident in the sudden unease of those sitting in the rows behind Seifer. Quistis, however, still had a few tricks left up her sleeve. Edea and Faber weren't just present to calm Seifer's nerves.

She nodded at Edea as she was told to sit down, the lawyer having had enough of her unwillingness to cooperate. It didn't really matter, she would get her chance to say everything that needed to be said later. She returned to her seat feeling an odd amount of satisfaction. Irvine and Zell shifted in their seats on either side of her.

"Was all of that true?" Zell asked her. "All of that about how he saved your life and everything?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "He's changed, Zell."

The little blonde man chewed at his bottom lip. He'd never liked Seifer, but he didn't necessarily wish anything bad on the other man. He wanted Seifer to get what he deserved, and that suddenly wasn't looking like he didn't deserve anything severe.

"Rinoa thinks you like him," Irvine whispered from the other side. She had heard of Rinoa's theory, based mostly on the fact that since she'd been working tirelessly everyday since returning with Seifer to get him off on all charges. It wasn't terribly difficult to figure out that she felt something toward him. Quistis, after all, hadn't been doing much to hide the fact.

Cid, certainly, had picked up on it. He'd nearly said as much when she was sitting in his office discussing her trip. When she'd left she'd been as unrelenting toward Seifer as anyone. She'd returned as one of his strongest supporters. Combined with her sudden interest in how the trial was going to go, Cid had come to the obvious conclusion.

She still remembered sitting across the desk from him as he observed her through his wire rimmed glasses.

"You like him, don't you?" He'd asked, causing her to blush.

"Sir..." she'd stammered. "I'm just worried he'd not going to get the representation he should have."

Cid had been nothing but helpful after that slightly embarrassing incident. He'd rushed the trail in order to prevent a good defense from being put together. He'd even helped Quistis put together her master plan that was currently unfolding. The fact that he was part of the jury which would decide Seifer's fate lifted her spirits, and she had hope again. It had been terribly hard to listen as accusations were leveled at him, and she'd shared in his pain in the beginning of the trial.

The next few hours droned on in the same manner, more witnesses coming up to the stand to tell of Seifer's wrong doings. No one had anticipated Quistis' testimony to turn out as it had, and the level of unrest in the room was palpable. A few of the witnesses even expressed some doubt as to their story, wondering aloud if perhaps they had been swayed by popular opinion. Quistis guessed that for the most part they had been. Seifer's bark was worse than his bite.

The last witness against him had just left the stand when suddenly Edea Kramer stood up from her seat. It was all part of the plan, and Quistis was thrilled.

"If I now may be allowed to speak," she announced, her voice booming over the make-shift courtroom, "I believe I can offer a very unique perspective not yet explored."

Everyone turned and looked at her, all of them knowing who she was.

"Since it appears Seifer will have no defense, you should at least allow me to say my piece."

The air stood still for several minutes before Cid nodded to his wife, signaling the board's acquiescence. They were practicing an odd mix of law from Galbadia, Esthar, and SeeD. Seifer needed no lawyer to represent him, and really was entitled to no say in the matter whatsoever. But, with the board's acceptance, Edea could speak without interruption. Leaving Faber to sit in his seat, she stood up and walked around to the front of the room.

"I've raised Seifer since he was a tiny little boy," she announced. "He's always had his dreams, and he was determined to follow them. I knew of his desire to be a knight and pledge his service, which is why I assumed that SeeD would be the perfect place for him. I'll admit, he was troubled. His family life hadn't gone well, and he didn't take the loss of his family easily. He was withdrawn, and even a bit of a bully. But, at the same time, he was courageous and quick witted."

Edea took a breath, smiled at Quistis and went on.

"I'm not sure exactly at what point Ultimecia took possession of me, but I distinctly remember seeing Seifer run into the Timber TV station and take the Galbadian president hostage," she looked down toward the ground. "Being in possession of me, Ultimecia was also in possession of my memories and she recognized him immediately along with his weakness. As he was backed into a corner, she...I...went to him. Quistis Trepe was running after him, meaning to save him...but Ultimecia stopped her. He recognized me somewhat, although I was a different person. Ultimecia gave him dreams...dreams of family and happiness. Everything he wanted was at the tip of her fingers."

She paced as she spoke, everyone hanging on her every word.

"Seifer was not of his own mind," she sighed, pushing back her dark hair. "He was as much under her control as I was. She fed him the worst sort of propaganda. Seifer honestly believed that all of SeeD was evil, that he was doing the right thing by protecting me. If he failed, or if he did wrong in any way, Ultimecia punished him. She'd take away the dreams, or worse...she'd further play with his already tortured mind."

Edea's testimony was difficult for Quistis to listen to, but she forced herself to pay attention.

"In the end, I was not punished for crimes much higher than poor Seifer's," she reminded them. "I killed President Deling. I instigated the attack upon Balamb Garden. I fought the children I had raised in the Deling City parade. I ordered Seifer to torture Squall, or anyone else if necessary. I ordered the missile attacks."

The reminder of her own crimes, although not really hers, was a poignant example.

"Since the war, Seifer has been running for his life because no one can find it in their heat to forgive him," Edea's hand came up to touch her chest. "All the blame has been leveled at him, despite the insignificant role that he really played. He has been banished from seeing his family or friends, he has lived on the very outskirts of civilization alone and starving. You have already punished this man far more than he should have been. Seifer Almasy is a good man...I love him with all of my heart, as do many of the children at the orphanage. There is nothing in this world quite so good a judge in character as a small child, and I have seen nothing but trust and admiration displayed toward him. Quistis Trepe has said it, and I will say it. Seifer has earned my respect along with my love. You all should be so lucky as to have such a man in your lives."

She took her seat, leaving the floor open, but all was silence.

Faber came out of his seat and walked to Seifer's, climbing up in his lap at the perfect moment. Seifer flushed with embarrassment at the child action, but it was all as Quistis had planned. No one could dislike a man that a child loved as much as Faber loved Seifer.

All but the shrewdest observer considered it an emotional turn of events. No one had any idea it had all been Quistis' planning and imagination. And, should what she had done thus far fail, she still had a backup plan. Seifer was not going to die, no matter what she had to do to prevent it.

Irvine leaned over, smelling sweet as usual. "You a psychic or something?" he asked.

"Not that I'm aware of," she smiled at him.

"Anyone else who would like to take the floor, please do so now," one of the officials presiding over the trail announced.

To everyone's surprise, even Quistis', Rinoa stood up. The petite brunette walked up the isle from her seat, everyone watching her. Quistis, knowing the past that Seifer and Rinoa shared, wasn't at all sure whether her need to speak was a good or a bad thing.

"Seifer is in this whole mess because of me," she announced, her dark gaze turning to him for a moment. "He came to Timber to help me, and if he had stayed behind none of this would have ever happened. I was...er...dating him at the time." She scratched at the back of her head, sending a look in Squall's direction. "I even thought I was in _love _with him. He was always so confident, he made me feel like I could take on the world. Seifer's not a bad guy at heart, I've seen the good side of him...the sweet side of him."

That, apparently, was all she had to say on the matter. She hadn't been called as a witness to tell about when he'd thrown her to Adel, which Quistis thought was odd. It had, after all, been one of his worst moments. But, as Rinoa took her seat ending her little interruption in Quistis' plan, she was just as ready to watch the rest of it unfold.

"I'd like to say somethin'...ya know!" She grinned inwardly, watching the look of surprise cross Seifer's face as Raijin and Fujin walked to the front of the room from the far back seats that Quistis had acquired for them. With his mouth hanging open, Seifer looked quickly to Quistis who smiled back at him.

"Seifer's a good guy, ya know," Raijin began.

"FRIEND!" Fujin agreed.

"Ultimecia was just using him. He was a different guy then, ya know. We hardly even recognized him," Raijin shrugged his wide, brown shoulders.

"PUPPET!" Fujin threw in.

Seifer was smiling at his friends. He'd missed them...his posse. They had always been there for him, until he was doing something that wasn't of his own will. They recognized that he was being used, that they were defending the sorceress and not him. That was the one and only point in which they had abandoned him. He'd lost touch with them over his years of exile, but when Quistis contacted them and informed them of the situation, both were more than happy to come.

By the time the two had sat down again, Seifer had his face buried against Faber's shoulder. She supposed he was attempting to look weary, but most everyone could tell that he was touched by the sudden out pouring of support. The man with no friends had suddenly discovered that he had quite a few after all. No one had abandoned him.

The audience shifted, a few people clearing their throats uncomfortably.

That was it, Quistis had done all she could. She crossed her fingers at her knees, Irvine watching her with curious eyes, and said a small prayer. It was in Cid's hands now.


	24. Fate

A/N: Bleh, I don't like this chapter at all. But, I had to get it written and out because it answers a very important question. Don't want to leave you all hanging. 

Chapter 24: Fate

"Where have you guys been?" Seifer asked, leaning forward against his elbows. Raijin and Fujin sat across from him in the detention room as everyone awaited the outcome of the trial. Seifer hadn't been able to believe his eyes when they'd walked up from the back of the room. He'd never dreamed they would show up, although he knew why they had. Quistis, she'd arranged everything.

"GALBADIA!" Fujin replied, nodding her silver head.

"Yeah, Fu's even got herself a boyfriend, ya know," Raijin nudged his female companion. "Things are gettin' real serious."

"JUST FRIENDS!" Fujin growled.

Seifer smiled, amused as always by his trusty posse. It had been a long time since he'd seen them, but neither of them had changed even a bit. Raijin was leaning back in his chair, teetering it on two legs. Fujin, in retribution for his remark, gave the chair a swift kick that sent it skittering out from underneath him. Raijin hit the floor with a firm slap, and a low bellow.

"Okay...so, Galbadia," he attempted to put their conversation somewhat back on track. "What have you two been doing all this time in Galbadia?"

"Fishing, ya know," Raijin grinned as he peeled himself up off the floor. "Working on a ship."

"STUDENT," Fujin shrugged.

Seifer hadn't been up to much other than running for his life, so there wasn't a whole lot from his side to share. However, as far as storytelling went, Raijin and Fujin weren't the best narrators. Discovering what they had been up to was like pulling teeth. And, Seifer was understandably on edge as the results of the trial were still pending. With as frustrated as he was becoming, he was still glad to see them. It was nice, at least, to have a little company.

The board had already been deliberating for hours. He wasn't sure whether that was a good sign or not. They weren't completely convinced that he was guilty, but they weren't completely convinced that he was innocent either. Or maybe the real argument was over the proper punishment for him.

Propping his feet up on the table, he crossed his arms and sighed.

"WORRIED?" Fujin asked.

"You could say that," Seifer remarked dryly.

The two stayed for an hour longer, telling in a broken manner of their exploits after parting ways with him. Fujin apparently was closer to her beau than she liked to admit. Both were very loyal people at heart, and the mannerisms that Raijin claimed she showed toward the man indicated to Seifer that she felt deeply about him.

Raijin himself had no other woman in his life aside from Fujin. He worked on a fishing boat based out of a small, Galbadian town, and he seemed to enjoy the work very much. He had the brute strength required to be a sailor, and even though dragging a net from the water wasn't the same as sitting on the edge of the docks, he had a talent for it.

In terms of employment, Fujin was apparently studying at a Galbadian university. She'd given up on the more violent ways of mercenary life to instead focus on more intellectual pursuits. It was at the Galbadian university that she had met the new man in her life. Seifer had always sort of got the feeling that she'd always be loyal to him foremost.

Just as Raijin was going into a long yarn about once when he'd been out on the boat, the door flew open, slamming against the wall and causing them all to jump.

Quistis stood there, her chest heaving and her hair hanging about her face.

"They've decided!" she announced breathlessly.

Seifer's heart slammed into his ribs, and he shot to his feet. Quistis looked tired and ragged, but her blue eyes shone with thundering excitement. They were both going to find out if all of her hard work was going to pay off. He hadn't realized at the time just how much work she had put into helping him. The days following their arrival at Garden, he'd begun to question what he'd thought they had when she never once came to see him. Raijin and Fujin had cleared some of his confusion up. She'd spent time tracking them down, then called them, and even arranged to have them picked up by the Ragnarok.

The same two SeeDs who had been escorting him for his entire stay were standing behind Quistis, their not so handsome faces staring over her shoulders.

"What are you waiting for?" she demanded, waving a hand wildly. "Let's go!"

"Yeah, let's go see what they decided, ya know!" Raijin was catching on to Quistis' excitement, and started immediately for the door, nearly shoving her out of the way in his childish bolt.

"IDIOT!" Fujin raced after him, her boots pounding against the floor.

Seifer watched them go for a few moments before Quistis' patience had run out.

"Come on," she motioned wildly.

As the two SeeDs took their position on either side of them, Seifer found the thrill of finding out his fate slowly begin to ebb away. He wasn't eager to find out if the results were bad. He was nervous, sweat trickling down his spine beneath his shirt. It wasn't fair to put a man through the sort of tension that he was currently enduring. The longer they walked, the more he wished that they would have just made some big and sudden announcement to save him the stress.

Quistis was walking in front of him, trying her best to tame her hair into some presentable form. She was more than paying him back for the incident in the blizzard. He'd put much less effort into saving her life than she was exerting for him.

She liked him, he still couldn't believe it. It didn't seem possible that he could have won her when he hadn't even been attempting to. And, at the same time, she'd somehow been able to win him over as well. An amazing thing had happened between them, and he couldn't even tell for sure when it had happened. He hoped he'd have the chance to pursue it.

The quad was alive with people when they arrived. Everyone in all of Garden seemed interested in the fate of Seifer Almasy. He guessed it was the same thing that drew people to a car accident. They were all ready and willing to see his life crumble and fall around him.

Seifer took his old seat, walking past row after row of people who were all looking up at him. The trial was the biggest event that had occurred in Garden since Ultimecia. Naturally, the two events were intermingled.

The members of the board that formed the jury wandered in moments later, the buzz of voices pausing and drenching the room with a heavy silence. Seifer could hear his blood rushing through his veins. The roar drowned out the sound of the men as they walked, one of them coughing lightly into his hand. Desperately, he tried to calm himself. He didn't want his overreacting body to prevent him from hearing their words. Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he breathed deeply in and out, the world spinning around him.

"Calm down, sweetie..." Edea's soothing words somehow made it through the haze created by the pounding of his heart. She squeezed his shoulder in much the same way as she had earlier.

"Seifer Almasy," Cid stood up, his hands tense at his sides. His normally low voice was raised to fill the quad, and Seifer snapped to attention.

"Sir," he nodded.

"This board, having heard all of the evidence for and against you," Cid glanced pointedly at Quistis and Edea. Quistis squared her shoulders proudly, her blue eyes never flinching.

_ Hyne, she's beautiful_, Seifer mused, fondness for her rising up in him in a flood.

All of her friends didn't appear to be upset with her for her sudden change in loyalties. They were all still sitting around her, Irvine and Zell on her either side. Not even Selphie seem perturbed. Seifer supposed it said volumes about what kind of people they were that they trusted Quistis' judgment. Hopefully everyone else had just as much faith in her.

"Having deliberated," Cid continued, his composure regained, "and fully discussed all evidence..."

Seifer pinched his eyes shut, afraid to hear the words that were coming.

"...have found Mr. Seifer Almasy..."

_ Hyne...please._

Seifer literally stopped breathing. He had never wanted any one thing so much in his entire life. A kind verdict meant more to him than just continued existence. It meant Quistis, it meant Faber...it meant everything.

The turning of the world slowed, Cid seemed to be moving in slow motion, the beginning of the word rolling off his lips like thick, cold molasses. Flinching, he tried to convince himself to listen.

"...innocent on all charges." Cid paused, looking around the crowd for some reaction.

Seifer was frozen in shock. Had he just said that? Had he really said _innocent_?

Quistis let out a long victory cry.

"Yeah, ya know!" Raijin called from the back.

"You're free, Mr. Almasy," Cid smiled.

_ Free_. There was no more beautiful word in all of the English language.

The crowd behind him surged, lifting out of their seats. Some were obviously displeased at the verdict, others thrilled. Quistis came up behind him, her arms thrown around his neck before he even had the time to get up out of his chair. Her face buried itself quickly against his neck, and she started sobbing. Her nerves were frazzled, and she was raw with emotion. Seifer, still numb from the shock, patted her head lightly.

"INNOCENT!" Fujin screamed, joining Quistis at his side.

He looked around as the crowd around him grew to include Squall, Irvine, Rinoa, Zell, Selphie, Edea, and little Faber. All of them were smiling, congratulating him.

"We'll have to throw a party," Selphie gushed, already casting her gaze around the room and envisioning the decorations.

"Getting a little ahead of yourself there, Selph," Irvine reminded her, one of his arms snaking around her waist.

"I knew it was going to be an innocent verdict," Rinoa announced proudly, her nose in the air.

"Me too," Zell agreed.

Quistis finally relinquished her hold on him, her eyes glistening and a smile on her lips.

Getting the clue, most of the people began to disperse, but Seifer could have cared less had they stayed. Quistis had saved his life. She'd done things for him no one else would, and she'd reminded him of what he had to live for. He was in love with her, and dammit...he wanted to kiss her.

Taking her chin in one of his shaking hands, he brought her mouth to his. Sucking lightly at her bottom lip, he let his eyes drift shut. His heart was hammering, not only from the kiss but the sheer bliss resulting from the outcome of the trial. _Innocent_...he wasn't going to be punished at all. It was more then he'd even dared to hope for.

"Thank you...Hyne, thank you so much," he murmured, twisting his head from side to side as the kiss ended.

"All I did was show them the truth," she replied, smiling.

Seifer grinned for a moment before planting another light kiss on her lips. They tasted salty from the tears still running down her cheeks.

"You did this..." he shook his head in awe. "You're amazing."

The two SeeDs previously assigned to guard him, who were been standing on either side of him, shifted uncomfortably at the sudden display of affection taking place between Quistis and Seifer. Normally, public displays of affection were at the tip top of Seifer's pet peeves. It surprised him to be indulging with such pleasure in what he considered to be one of the top ten social crimes.

But Quistis was different...and what had happened between them certainly justified the need her felt to show her his appreciation. Certainly this was an exception to the rule.

"Seifer..." Cid came walking up to them, one hand extended. His red sweater vest was covered in little lint balls that made him look haggard and worried. "Congratulations. You're free to leave Garden anytime you want. Although, I would advise steering clear to Esthar and Galbadia for some time."

"Thank you, Sir." Seifer took Cid's offered hand and shook it, finally having enough strength in his legs to rise from his chair. This, he supposed, was the single best day of his life. He had his life back, he had his friends back, and he'd acquired the likes of Faber and Quistis Trepe. The future, suddenly, was looking a lot brighter than it ever had.


	25. One Day I'll Fly Away

A/N: Well, the previous chapter wasn't that last. Actually, neither is this one. Chapter 26 will be the last, just so we're all on the same page. I like this one much more than the last one. Some of you may have guessed just from the title of this chapter, but I wrote this while watching Moulin Rouge. (I'm madly in love with Ewan McGregor...)

"Why live life from dream to dream and dread the day when dreaming ends?" -Moulin Rouge

Chapter 25: One Day I'll Fly Away

Quistis smiled over the top of her glass. Rinoa, who was sitting across from her, seemed surprised at Quistis' sudden goodwill. Quistis had arranged the private breakfast between them following the wonderful outcome of Seifer's trial in order to thank the little brunette for the surprising amount of support she had displayed through the entire ordeal. Out of everyone, she had been the quickest to accept the new bond that had formed between Quistis and Seifer. Most importantly, she had been the one to stand up and support it without ever being asked.

She set down her cup, pressing her lips tightly together. Where to begin when so much had passed between them?

"Rinoa...I..." she paused, deciding to be direct. "I would like to thank you."

"For what?" Rinoa smiled innocently, her brown eyes gleaming.

"For Seifer," Quistis replied, blushing a little. "For sticking up for him when you didn't have to."

"Shouldn't _he _be the one thanking me?" Rinoa asked, arching one delicate eyebrow.

"You know Seifer," Quistis shrugged, making up excuses. "He'd never get around to it." Rinoa, a suspicious look crossing her face momentarily, smiled.

"Where is he anyway?" she finally asked, changing the subject.

"Probably still asleep," Quistis replied, looking down at her watch. It was still early, only eight in the morning. Seifer, Quistis knew, didn't generally get up until around ten in the morning. The only few exceptions that she had found to that general rule was the morning he had gotten up with Faber. The child got up at an ungodly hour and made it apparent that everyone else still asleep had a duty to rise as well. Quistis didn't mind his tendency to sleep in. In fact, she rather enjoyed spending a little extra time in bed herself.

"Is he leaving?" Rinoa asked between bites of toast smothered with raspberry jam.

"I don't know," Quistis admitted. Seifer had retired almost immediately the previous night to his newly appointed room. The entire trial, having been held in a single day as was Galbadian law, had been an exhausting experience. Even Quistis, after the stress of testimony and then waiting for the outcome, had fallen into bed that night and fallen almost immediately asleep, only taking the time to ask Rinoa to have breakfast with her first.

"I think he should stay here," Rinoa offered.

"He's too old now to make SeeD," Quistis reminded her. "And he doesn't really have friends aplenty here."

"He has you," Rinoa pointed out. "I'd think that would be enough."

Maybe Squall would have been enough for Rinoa, but Quistis wasn't naive enough to think that Seifer would stay anywhere just for her. He wasn't nearly that sentimental, and she didn't expect him suddenly to become that way. Besides that, she wasn't sure yet what exactly they had. She'd done her part and helped him in much the same way as he had helped her. They were fond of one another...but she didn't really think that what they had was strong enough to keep Seifer in a place where well over half of the population still firmly disliked him.

Falling into a moment of silence, Quistis and Rinoa finished off their light breakfast. The two had never been the best of friends, but they had never really been enemies. Still, it was beyond Quistis why Rinoa would be so loyal with no reason. As much as she was finding that she actually liked the petite woman, she couldn't help but be a little suspicious.

"Seifer..." Rinoa tilted her head to one side a little. "He's a little like a drug, I think."

"What do you mean?"

"He's just as good at making people feel good about themselves as bad," she shrugged. "It's easy to get drawn into. He's so confident of himself, and when you're not it's a firm draw. Plus, he's a bad boy. Ever wonder why good girls like bad boys?"

Quistis frowned a little. Since when was Rinoa such an expert on love? Of course, she had gotten Squall easily over Quistis' sad advances. She'd also had Seifer for a short period of time. Maybe it was in Quistis' best interest to listen to her.

"Do you really believe what you said during the trial?" she asked.

"Seifer does have a good side, I think," Rinoa replied. "Of course, as you've said...he's changed since I knew him."

Quistis nodded, reflecting back upon the time she'd spent with him. Seifer, indeed, was like a drug -- the kind of drug a person became addicted to before even realizing that it was possible. Quistis was in drastic need of an intervention.

"I should go," Quistis remarked, looking down at her watch. "I want to get in a few quick runs through the training center before it becomes crowded with SeeD candidates practicing for their exam."

"Okay," Rinoa smiling, sipping at some apple juice. "This was nice...let's do it again sometime."

"Sure," Quistis smiled.

She left the cafeteria at her usual swift pace. Not much had changed since she had left in search of Seifer. Actually, that wasn't _entirely_ true, Irvine had filled her in on all the happenings while she'd been gone. Most of them were slight variations in the social web of Garden, or slight surface changes to the overall scheme of Garden life.

Surprisingly, she had only been back a short time and was already beginning to feel the same sort of claustrophobia that had sent her away in the first place. It wasn't possible that she was already sick of the place she called home. She'd never been one to be overly restless, but try as she might she couldn't get herself settled back in.

The training center had a distinct smell, one that was oddly calming. As Quistis walked in, she inhaled it deeply (some sort of strange mixture of animal, sweat, and vegetation). Unrolling her whip, she closed her eyes and started through the undergrowth where all the biggest monsters liked to hide out. It seemed like the last place they would be, but the beaten path was generally avoided by the animals with slightly more intellect. And Quistis was looking for a good fight.

As she ducked under a low branch, the high waving tentacles of a grat came into view. She played with the little creature for some time, casting status changes on it and upping its level periodically for a tougher fight.

Gradually, she grew board and simply sent a few firm lashes the creature's way until it slumped unconscious to the ground. That done, Quistis moved on to do the same to two more grats and a t-rexaur before becoming thoroughly bored with the game.

SeeD, somehow, just wasn't as exciting as it had once been. After saving the world from time compression and an evil sorceress...how much was there left for her to do?

A little bothered, she attached her looped whip to her belt and, kicking some loose grass and dirt off of her boots, made her way out of the training center and back out into the hallway. SeeD candidates were already buzzing around the entrance. Their exam was set for the next day. From what Quistis had heard it was a trip Dollet where they would work to take care of the sudden surge in the fasticalon population. Sometimes the exams were better than others.

Quistis wandered around for a good part of the day, finding herself at one point in the library with a book she had yet to read. It lost her interest quickly. Rather unsettled, she finally decided to see if she could find Seifer. For reasons she decided not to investigate, she hadn't attempted to find him even though she wanted to talk to him about his plans. She supposed that she was worried about what she might hear from him. At least until she had her feelings worked out, she didn't want him to leave. But there wasn't anything she could do to keep him in Garden if he decided against staying.

"Fujin!" She saw a flash of blue and silver as she came around a corner. The other woman stopped, blinking once before finally seeing Quistis who waved to get her attention.

"QUISTIS," Fujin nodded, stopping so that Quistis could catch up to her.

"Hey..." she paused, clasping her hands behind her back. "Do you know where Seifer is?"

"DORM ROOM," Fujin replied, cocking her head in the general direction of the dorms.

"Oh." That was easy enough. "Thanks."

"WELCOME," Fujin smiled.

Quistis had to admit, as sweet as the little silver haired woman could be, she wasn't overly fond of her. Most likely it was the fact that she screamed in one or two word sentences. Quistis found it difficult on her hearing to be around Fujin, and frustrating knowing that the other woman was perfectly capable of normal speech.

When she arrived at the door to Seifer's temporary dorm room, the door was slung open and he was standing half way in it. A large box was at his feet, and he was pushing it with one foot further into the room.

"What've you got there?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Oh...you know, this and that," he replied, turning his head to smile at her. "Stopped into Balamb with Fujin and used some of Cid's money to buy myself some needed supplies."

"Needed supplies?"

He shrugged. "Some new clothes, a new toothbrush...things like that."

Quistis followed him inside, clicking the door shut behind her. Seifer, still not bothering just to pick up the box, pushed it against the wall and then took a step back to look at it with an odd sense of pride.

"Nice to be able to walk into a place and just buy stuff I need," he grinned. "Haven't done that in a while." He still had all of the cold weather gear he had acquired in Trabia. Hyperion was laying at the foot of his bed, his coat providing the protection that had once been the job of a case. The case for his gunblade had been long since lost. Quistis had figured that would have been the first of his purchases rather than a new toothbrush.

The bright grin never leaving his face, he walked over to her where she was still leaning up against the door.

He tilted his head to one side and kissed her confidently. He had regained that cockiness of his youth that living as a criminal had wiped away. It was more subtle now, and instead of making him seem arrogant it instead gifted him with an air of being self-assured.

"Thanks again."

Quistis looked closely at him as he stood mere inches from her. For the moment at least, he looked content. She wondered how long the effects of the trial would keep him that way. Days? Maybe weeks? Months was a highly generous estimate. There would come a day, an hour, when staying with her, in her life, just wouldn't do any longer. Eventually, he would leave. Eventually, she would be alone again in her sad little existence.

"Something wrong?" he asked, noticing her pensive look.

"What are your plans?" she asked. "Now that you're a free man."

"Why?"

_ Why? _Quistis wanted to smack him. Didn't he think ever for a moment that where he was going and what he was doing might affect her? The only way she could see him on a reguar basis was if he would consent to stay at Garden.

"Was just wondering," she mumbled, a little unhappy.

"Actually," he shrugged, "I'm going back to Centra."

Quistis tried not to frown. He was going back to Edea's, back to Faber. She was a little surprised that he would chose the child over her. Seeing it that way was probably pessimistic, but she didn't want him to leave, and damn it if it wasn't because of that child.

She sighed. It wasn't really Faber's fault. She couldn't blame him for wanting to leave. Most of the people at Garden didn't like him. Yet, there was a place just across the water where he felt at home and welcome. If she were in his shoes, she'd want to leave to.

"When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning with Edea and Faber." She could have guessed that he would be returning with the two. Seifer, the fallen knight, running off to take care of small children at an orphanage. It was a strange outcome to the life he'd led up to that point. His flame had burned down though, and he wasn't quite as restless as he had once been. She wanted to follow him, but knew that she couldn't. Garden was her home. It was the one place in the world that she belonged.

Slipping from his grasp, she offered him a weak smile.

"Good luck there," she said, turning her head.

"Edea thinks I should take Faber under my wing," he announced, seemingly oblivious to her upset feelings regarding his departure. "Was thinking I could sort of be a father figure to him." He smiled brightly, obviously very happy with the course he'd chosen...the one that didn't involve her.

Quistis wished she could be a part of it, she really did. But she couldn't leave her entire life behind, not again. Could she?


	26. How Wonderful Life Is

A/N: I know I said this was going to be the last chapter...and it is, but there's also going to be a short afterward because I'm not thrilled with this chappy. So, from this point...an afterward and an alternate ending, and then I'll really be done. On a side note, does everyone else have the same problem I do? Whenever I have an update, fanfiction.net becomes inexplicably unavailable (every time, never fails)...it's _really_ irritating.

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge

Chapter 26: How Wonderful Life Is

Seifer dug his fingers into the ground, the warmth of the spring sunshine having filled the dark soil. Autumn had been winding down into a dismal winter when he'd arrived back at the orphanage where he'd grown up. It hadn't been the happy homecoming that he'd imagined. True enough, he was returning to a place where he'd once been able to find the life he wanted to live. But he'd planned the trip back to Centra assuming that Quistis would accompany him. When she'd come to his temporary dorm room so many months ago, his bubble had been burst. She'd made it obvious before leaving that she had no intention of accompanying him. SeeD was more important to her.

Seeing her walk out of his room and his life in his mind's eye, Seifer put a little more zest into his chore. The garden stretched out barren before him, half of it now sewn with seeds. Edea, before departing that morning had dropped the packages of vegetable and flower seeds into Seifer's lap along with instructions to have them planted before she returned that evening. So, his shirt sleeves rolled up, he'd spent a good half of the day in the dirt.

Early on, Faber had joined him. After a few hours, however, he'd lost interest in digging rows and small holes.

Seifer stood up, stretching out a ache in the lower part of his back, as he reached the end of a row of carrots. There were still little half grown plants waiting at the side of the garden in black plastic containers, but he needed to check on the children. He'd become familiar with all of them in the first winter month of his stay. Centra had a relatively mild climate, but that winter had brought a little bit of snow and quite a bit of rain that kept all of the children inside.

The sun was high in the sky above him, beating down warmly upon his now bare shoulders. The day was humid, sticky. Sweat was collecting across his skin, and he wanted nothing more than to take a long shower. Pushing the waiting plants out of his mind, he looked around for the familiar dark head.

"Faber!" The little, dark haired boy looked up from a sandcastle he was building on the beach. "I'm going to hop in the shower! Make sure no one gets into any trouble!"

"Sure!" his voice came echoing back off the rocks.

Try as he might, Seifer just couldn't reclaim the bliss of the two days he'd spent in Centra with Quistis Trepe. As he walked to the bathroom, he wondered if she was happy back in Garden. He didn't want to drag her away from the place that she called home. In his euphoria following the outcome of the trial, he'd taken it for granted that she would simply follow him back. They loved each other, didn't they? They'd start their own life together, away from SeeD and away from Garden. He knew as well as she did that they could never be happy together in Balamb, there were too many haunting memories from the past, things he would like to forget.

So, he left without her.

Frowning, Seifer stepped into the hot spray of the shower and let it pound down on him. This was supposed to be happiness. He had a home, he had Faber. What else did he need?

He needed Quistis.

That realization had been a difficult one for him to deal with. It had come to him one lonely winter morning as he nursed a cup of hot chocolate. Faber had been sitting across from him in a gray, fuzzy sweater. He hadn't been in as bright of spirits as usual, able to sense Seifer's unease. Surprisingly enough, it had been Faber who'd given him the key to his unhappiness.

"You should ask Quistis to come live with us," Faber had offered over his cereal. "You're more fun with her."

He closed his eyes, his muscles quivering under the hot spray of the shower. He'd been more complete with her, and he missed her terribly. Still, the way he felt about her hadn't been enough to bring her away from her beloved career. He supposed he couldn't expect her to give up everything for him, but he wanted nothing more than to start fresh with her.

By the time he got out of the shower, Seifer had worked himself into an uncharacteristic depression. Why, he wondered, was happiness so persistently difficult to get a hold of? There were two choices available to him. He could stay with Quistis in Garden and be miserable in an environment that hated him. On the other hand, there was the option that he had chosen. He came back to Centra, leaving Quistis behind to the life she'd chosen.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he wandered blindly back to his room. Edea would be back soon, and he had to replace his expression of sadness with a mask of contentment. He didn't want her to know how simply miserable he felt at times. His new life was supposed to be wonderful, and sometimes it helped him to pretend that it was.

He redressed quickly, shaking water out of his hair. He'd finally gotten around to getting a haircut, and his overall appearance was fairly close to the one he'd had at eighteen. Somehow, he couldn't rid himself of the almost half-starved, corded look he'd acquired. It was like a constant reminder of the metamorphosis of his wretched life.

Outside, the garden was still waiting for him, and Faber's castle had gained two more floors and a moat. He had an incredible talent at building things. The few days during the winter in which they'd had snow, Seifer had gone outside to help Faber build a snow man, and in the end had been more of a hindrance to Faber's attempt than a help. So, he'd sat back and watched as Faber attempted to fix some of the damage that Seifer had done to the icy little man.

"How's it going?" Seifer asked, walking up to Faber.

"Can't get my tower strait," he replied, casting a critical frown on the castle.

"Looks strait to me," Seifer shrugged. "You're too hard on yourself."

Faber curled one lip up, a slight amount of disgust at his inability to construct a perfect castle apparent in his expression. However, his countenance bent suddenly in the other direction as his dark gaze softened and a sly little grin crossed his lips.

"What?" That look always made Seifer suspicious.

"Matron's back," he said simply, shrugging his small shoulders.

Seifer attempted to school his expression before turning around to follow Faber's line of sight. Matron, indeed, had returned from wherever she gone that morning. However, it obviously wasn't Edea's dark and exotic form that Faber had been grinning at. Instead, it was the golden haired woman trailing behind her.

_ Quistis_.

After months away from her, she looked even more beautiful than he'd remembered. In the spring sun, her hair glimmered delightfully. She had on a sundress that fell about her knees and a floppy hat, a pair of sunglasses perched on her nose. The dress was a gauzy white and rode the sea breeze easily, whipping about her long legs. Watching her, he couldn't breathe.

Edea neared, and Quistis went to stand strategically behind her, blocking much of Seifer's view. The sand behind them was marked with a set of two small footprints. Quistis wasn't wearing her usual boots, but instead of a pair of feminine sandals.

"Did you get the garden planted?" Edea asked, adverting his attention and not even bothering to tell him why Quistis was with her.

"Uh...sort of..." he stammered, leaning to one side in order to see over her shoulder to Quistis.

"Did you at least get all the seeds planted?" she asked, placing one hand on her hip and leaning with him into his view of the blonde.

"Yeah..." he nodded, wishing the good natured women would go away.

For days and days he had been fighting the urge to go back to Quistis. Centra just wasn't home without her, and as much as he hated leaving Faber, he was finding it difficult to get along without her. Now, as suddenly as his feelings for her seemed to have ignited, she'd come back into his life. Her presence could have been fleeting, or even a product of his overused imagination. But, even if she was a dream, it was one he wanted to indulge.

"Good!" Edea chirped, moving past him and taking Faber's hand. "Come inside and help me start dinner, Faber. We'll have to make something special tonight since we have company." She smiled down at him, pulling slightly at his arm. Faber reluctantly went with her, finally leaving Quistis and Seifer alone.

"Hi..." she murmured, digging her toe into the sand.

"Hi," he replied daftly. Then, after a long pause, he licked his lips. "What are you doing here?"

"I've...come to live here," she shrugged.

Seifer choked back surprise. She wasn't just visiting, and she wasn't some temporary vision.. She'd come to stay. Had she come for him?

"Oh? Why's that?" he managed to ask. Quistis looked embarrassed, her eyes focusing on her feet.

"I just wasn't...comfortable at Garden anymore," she shrugged. "I mean, I tried to settle back in, but it just didn't do it for me anymore, you know?" It was the restlessness that she'd told him had driven her away from Garden in the first place. Oddly enough, both times she'd been driven toward him. Although, he guessed this time was a little different than the last. He wasn't a criminal anymore.

"You quit SeeD?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah..." she shrugged. "I...uh...I was thinking that maybe..." She took a big breath, licking her lips nervously. "I was thinking you and I could...give being together another shot."

Seifer had to pinch himself just to be sure he wasn't dreaming. It was all too good to be true. Quistis had come to him, she'd given up what had been the center of her life to start clean with him. It was everything he'd been hoping for through the winter. It was, as Faber had pointed out, the very key to Seifer's happiness.

"You want to be with me?" he asked.

"Well...yeah."

"But, when I left..." he shook his head. "You seemed so determined to stay back in Garden. You said that it was your home and you couldn't imagine leaving."

"I thought that it was," she admitted. "But, the longer I stayed there, the more unhappy I got. I thought maybe if I found you, that we could sort of start over."

"I thought you didn't want to be with me," he blushed. "I thought you would come with me when I left."

"I thought you were leaving me," she shook her head.

They both stood for a moment, staring at each other and realizing that they had wasted the past few months because of a very simple misunderstanding. Would she have come if he asked her to? He wasn't sure. Maybe she'd needed those months to come to him. With time, he would have gone back to her anyway.

"I missed you," he admitted, embarrassed at how thrilled he was to have her back.

"I missed you, too." She took a step toward him. "I kept thinking of how easy it was to be here with you. I kept wishing that I could have it back."

Seifer let out a long breath. This was it. This was his chance to make the world into the perfect place that he so wanted it to be. Quistis was standing before him, her heart on her sleeve, and she was asking him to start a new life with her. He wanted to scream and throw his arms up toward the sky. This was the very essence of heaven. This was...perfection.

Leaning forward, he cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her.

The world changed pace, clicked into place, and she lifted her arms to wrap them around him. There was no more fighting it, and Seifer abandoned himself to the feel of her tucked in his arms. He was drawn into the kiss, his consciousness twisted and interweaved with hers. It was like coming home, like finding Eden in his backyard. He loved her. As much as he had struggled against it and tried to convince himself that he could live without her, he was finally able to simply give into the feelings that were overwhelming him. He loved her...simply loved her.

"Quistis..." he murmured against her lips.

"I love you, Seifer," she interrupted him. "Hyne, I don't know when or why...but I love you."

"I..." he closed his eyes. "I love you, too."

Quistis rested her forehead against his, a smile across her lips. It was such an easy thing, but it had taken Seifer years to discover, and as happiness flooded him, he found the dying fire within him sparking back to life. It flickered, then rose to a dull roar. The world, and Seifer within it, came suddenly back to life like that wild flame. He was fallen no longer, he was complete...and he owed everything to her. This woman who loved him, who'd given her everything for him.

"Let's start fresh, Quistis."

"Okay," she smiled, trailing a hand down his back. 

He let his head roll to one side to come to rest against her shoulder. The life he'd been dreaming of was finally within his grasp. This was the way things were _meant _to be.

Life and love, Seifer reflected, were strange but wonderful things. 


	27. Afterward

A/N: This is for those of you who read my mind. Can't believe you all knew what I had planned for our happy couple.... :-P 

By the way, I know this just makes me seem incredibly indecisive, but no alternate ending. I started on it, and...ya know...it just sort of rips to shreds everything I established through out the fic. It made me sort of depressed, so I decided not to write it. For those of you not interested in knowing what the alternate ending was going to say....**stop reading now** and move on to the afterward.....in the alternate ending, Quistis and Seifer die together in the mountains. I originally had it plotted for somewhere around chapter three, but changed my mind and instead it was going to make all of the happiness that they found through the story actually be in their minds as they were dying (yes...depressing).

Afterward

Quistis squinted her eyes and bent her back slightly backwards. Just like Seifer, Faber was never easy to find when he knew that he was going to be in trouble. A little girl's wails rang out behind her as she walked down the shallow stone steps. She sighed, Faber could be so insensitive to other people's feelings sometimes.

The early June sun was beating hard down on top of her head, and she had to shield her eyes to see anything past the glare that it created. Really, she didn't know why she was even bothering to look along the beach or even in the vicinity of the orphanage, she knew exactly where he would be.

"Quistis, honey..." Edea's voice rose up above that of the bawling child. "Don't worry about it."

"He knows better," she retorted. The walk wasn't really a long one, she'd made it just that morning. And really she was feeling quite well, she felt up to it.

"Be careful!" Edea reminded her.

"Yeah...yeah," Quistis waved off the older woman's concerns.

It had been a full year since Edea had come down to the Centra docks to pick her up. She'd tired of Garden, and after all of the struggling to force herself to be happy, she'd finally realized that what she was looking for was only a boat ride away. It was simple enough to see. She'd been happy with Seifer, and no more so than when they'd been in Centra together. The more and more she tried to convince herself that SeeD was her life, the more she fell toward the conviction that she would rather be leading a more domestic existence with Seifer.

Domestic life, she reflected, had been remarkably easy to obtain. She and Seifer had a short courtship following her arrival, and by September had arranged a hasty marriage. True to form, they'd eloped without a word to any of their friends, which had caused quite a stir. Selphie had assumed quite incorrectly that they'd married privately in order to keep her from planning the wedding. She was convinced that Seifer disliked her due to the testimony she'd given against him during his now infamous trial. Rinoa had been just as firmly convinced that Quistis simply didn't like her, and didn't want her present. It took a number of phone calls and a few lunch dates to set matters strait. Planning meant delays, and that was the last thing the couple wanted.

She had only a simple gold band as a wedding ring, although it was more than enough. Quistis had quite a bit stockpiled from her SeeD salary. She'd been systematically putting it away for years, planning for the future. She'd had no idea at the time that a good amount of that money would go into their first real project as a couple (and a _married _one at that). Only a short distance from Edea's orphanage, Seifer arranged to have an adorable two story house built. It was nestled in a flowery little field and even had a short stretch of beach. They were living in domestic bliss in their cute white house with their not entirely perfect, but certainly very happy marriage.

As she walked, their house came to view in the distance. He always worried about her when she walked alone, especially in her current state. She was as far from the mercenary she'd once been as she could get. Completely out of practice and a good six months pregnant, she couldn't have fought off a monster if she had to. Luckily, they weren't much of a problem any longer, and she rarely encountered any on the short walk.

Her hands fell to her stomach. Their first child...sort of.

"Faber Almasy!" she bellowed as she came into the yard. "You get down here this instant!"

His dark little head peeked off the top of the roof, then ducked back when he saw her looking up at him. Seifer had taken it upon himself to nail down some errant shingles on part of the roof himself after a particularly strong storm had blown a few of them loose. Faber, having found that he could easily get up onto the roof from his bedroom window it he stood up on the railing of the second floor balcony (that had been the sophisticated way in which Seifer had reached the roof), made the place his newest sanctuary.

"Hey, Honey," Seifer, having heard her return, swung the door open and came out to greet her. "Back so soon?"

"Faber told some little girl at the orphanage that no one wanted her, and that he was better than her because he has a family," she rolled her eyes, then cast them back up toward the roof. "Come down right now!"

"But Mom..." he whined, sticking his head back over the side. "It's true no one wants her."

"Faber," Seifer rose his voice now. "Get down here." Like usual, he followed Seifer's order immediately. As Faber climbed down, he adverted his attention to Quistis, planting a quick kiss on her cheek and letting his hand trail over her stomach.

"Hey," he dropped his voice, trying his best to sound sexy. "You look _hot_."

"That's because I am," she replied, poking him in the ribs. "Course, you've been sitting in the air conditioned house all this time."

"Not all the time," he shrugged. "I went outside once or twice to see if you were on your way home yet."

"Dad!" Faber came bursting through the front door. "You're not going to make me go back there and say sorry, are you?"

"Of course I am, don't be silly," he replied.

They had adopted Faber only a few months after getting married. He'd adapted quickly to having the two as parents, although it took him longer to accept Quistis than Seifer. He'd been a little more to handle than either of them had quite anticipated, and they had both in the process yet of finding jobs. Quistis would still receive money from Garden for years according to the arrangement Cid had worked out. A sort of SeeD retirement plan. It was something she was currently quite thankful for as the pregnancy had kept her firmly out of the job market. Seifer, with his Garden training, had easily gotten a job in a lazy little town only minutes from their home as a police officer. The town was enjoying unusual peace, Seifer still struck fear in the hearts of many would be criminals.

"We're having dinner at Matron's later tonight anyway," Seifer announced. "You can apologize then."

Faber frowned and, kicking at the doorframe, retreated to his room to brood.

"How much do you want to bet he marries that girl someday?" Seifer asked, wrapping an arm around Quistis' waist. "I remember you saying something similar to me when you found out you were going to be adopted."

"I did?" Quistis remembered more of her childhood than she had, but portions of it were still fuzzy.

"Yep," he kissed her. "And I don't think you ever said you were sorry."

Quistis shook her head, smiling at him. He was handsome, charismatic, sweet...and he was all hers. She still found it hard to believe at times. How crazy life was when she could leave one morning and bounty hunter, and wake up another cuddled happily next to her quarry. Quistis could justify it only one way, they were meant to be. They were meant to find each other, and to find Faber.

She sighed, a gentle bliss overtaking her. "I love you," she announced, feeling the urge to tell him so. He grinned, walking with her into their house.

"I love you, too. Always will."

Quistis still found it strange that after searching so hard for love and happiness, she had found it over the dying embers of a fire in the cold recesses of Trabia. That evening so long ago when she'd spotted the light in the snow, she'd had no idea how it would change her life. Like that little, flickering light, she'd been lost in the haze of the storm. With Seifer, she found everything she'd been searching for upon leaving Garden. She'd found the answer to her restlessness.

"Think we can get a quick romp in before Faber comes out of his room?" Seifer asked, arching an eyebrow suggestively.

"Seifer," she shook her head. "I'm six months pregnant."

"So?" he tilted his head. "Come on...you know you want to."

Entering the white confines of the kitchen, she turned to face him. He was proudly wearing a cocky grin, and he motioned with his hand toward the stairs. Quistis couldn't help but smile back, he was very persuasive. His hands at her back, he urged her up the stairs and down the hallway past Faber's door to their own room. With finality, he closed the door behind them.

Domestic bliss.

Quistis had never considered herself to be the kind of girl who'd make a good wife or mother, but she was thoroughly enjoying both jobs. As Seifer wrapped his arms around her, cradling her against him, she let out a happy sigh. This was everything she wanted. Life was truly beautiful. And, for the first time that she could recall, it was filled with contentment.

The taste of her husband on her lips, the feel of their child nestled inside, she wanted for nothing.

Bliss...she kept coming back to that word. Something she'd only dreamt of finding, but had stumbled across in the most unlikely of places. She'd found it in the proud, fallen knight...her very own, Seifer Almasy.

THE END


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